Ground Rule Trouble

No man is a (Coney) island...

2009-03-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

One of the bigger surprises of this year’s Hall of Fame vote to me was the fact David Cone went one-and-out on the ballot. In my January 14 Hardball Times article Daze of whine and posers all I had to say on the subject was “David Cone (3.9%) … I thought he might hang around and wouldn’t be surprised to see him get some attention from the VC.”

He strikes me as a guy that was probably a bit underappreciated by both the media and the sabermetric community hence he didn’t get a lot of attention during the vote. I do think however that his peers (or whatever form the VC will take) will one day show him a lot more love.

Probably the most striking aspect to his career from my point of view is that a David Cone likely would not happen today with the emphasis on protecting hurlers’ arms and pitch counts. Cone enjoyed a remarkable 12 year run from 1988-1999 and was known as a guy with a rubber arm. Indeed he made 348 regular season starts in those years and topped 120 pitches in 130 of them; of those 130 turns, 58 times he threw over 130 pitches, he tossed 140 or more on a dozen occasions and in one iron man outing--he tossed a 166 pitch shutout against the San Francisco Giants in July 1992 whiffing 13.

Amazingly, that was part of an eight start stretch where he went 6-0, 3.15 ERA, struck out 80 in 60 IP averaging 137 pitches per game; his pitch counts were 134, 136, 142, 134, 166, 132, 115 and 138.

Ouch.

Cone made his résumé in those seasons and it was indeed a very impressive 12 years: 175-96, 3.15 ERA (lg. ERA: 4.17), topping 200 innings eight times in ten full campaigns (1994-95 were shortened by the strike) and was over 190 frames in the other two non-strike seasons. He pitched 2468 innings overall and struck out 2331; over those 12 seasons he was third in ERA behind Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens, fifth in innings pitched, fourth in RSAA (Runs Saved Against Average) behind Maddux, Clemens and Randy Johnson, third in strikeouts (Johnson and Clemens), second in winning percentage (Maddux) and fourth in wins (Maddux, Clemens and Tom Glavine).

He won a Cy Young Award, enjoyed a pair of 20-win seasons picked up four World Series rings as a starter (he picked up a fifth as a reliever for the Yankees in 2000), and although he didn’t fare well in LDS play, he was 6-2, 3.01 ERA in over 80 LCS/Fall Classic innings and had a stellar 2.12 ERA in the five World Series in which he appeared.

During those 12 seasons he certainly held his own against the greats of that era. He was considered the team leader of the great Yankee team of 1996-2000 and has a perfect game on his ledger to boot--in all, I think a case can be made for the Hall of Fame for one David Brian Cone.

Chapeaus and such…

While the offseason the Yankees enjoyed has some clubs calling for a salary cap, I do think that Selig is serious about not being interested in one at the moment. To begin with, he is in a poor position to decry player costs when he’s pulling down $18 million a year--a level that only a small handful of players are currently at; also there is the small matter that MLB is actually doing a lot better than the other three sports (all with caps) insofar as percentages of revenue being devoted to player salaries.

A salary cap usually assigns a fixed percentage of revenues to be used for compensation and to match the other three sports baseball would actually have to agree to devote more money to salaries. Of course, if ownership does push for a cap and agrees to this (higher percentage) you can bet your bottom dollar/salary floor that management feels confident that it can hide a lot of revenues in third/related party transactions and funnelling funds to interests under the same corporate umbrella.

Still, it would be funny to watch Selig squirm in front of the microphones about how the sport needs to curtail player costs while being questioned about how much he makes. Of course, the big question that I would ask baseball’s commander-and-thief would be “How can a sport that loses so much money afford to pay their commissioner $18 million a year?” Heck, each club kicks in on average as much as all the clubs put in combined to pay his predecessor Fay Vincent’s salary; Vincent made about $600,000 when given the boot.

See ya on the other side…

This will be my last post for a little while--I go under the knife for the ol’ ticker at 7:15 AM Monday. Again, thanks for all the notes and well-wishes; once I’m fixed…er, repaired, I’ll be back with a vengeance. I’ve submitted a column for SMSN Sports that will run next week--beyond that it’s wait-and-see. Regardless, I’ve been a busy boy this week and here’s the latest:

Somebody needs A-Clue (SMSN Sports) A lighter look at Alex Rodriguez’s recent pratfall--my editor rejected my suggestion for a title: “Like A-Burgeon(ing problem).”

A-Reck (Hardball Times) I don my tinfoil hat and deal with something that I’ve always wondered about regarding the enigmatic-Rod.

Five questions: Toronto Blue Jays (Hardball Times) I do this every year with my usual mix of optimism and snark.

Best Regards

John

Yank-ing chains...

2009-03-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

I love classic cars--besides the styling, my favourite thing are those old big block engines where size matters and you’re judged on your cubic inches; there’s just something about seeing eight old oil can sized pistons to set the ol’ heart a-flutter.

After I retire I want to modify a smaller, economy style car by somehow managing to squeeze as big an engine block as I can, tricking it out to get maximum low end torque out of the beast and somehow succeeding to hide the “little car that could” (kick your butt)'s secret behind a dead-smooth idle with no hint of a lope.

But I digress--kinda.

Anyway, imagine for a moment you wanted to build the ultimate engine and money is no object. You do all kinds of research because you want all the biggest, baddest parts--top of the line for your creation: engine block, camshafts, pistons, alternator, manifolds, exhaust system etc. You find that different manufacturers (Ford, Toyota, BMW etc.) have developed the best of the best of these parts and when your shopping is done you have nothing but state-of-the-art, high end performance/output parts.

Now put the engine together.

If you’ve ever worked on an engine you know of what I speak. You’ll be doing a lot of work getting it assembled.

There used to be an old gag where a guy bought a new fangled carburetor guaranteed to reduce gas consumption 50%, spark plugs that would cut it down 10%, a high-tech air filter good for another 20%, synthetic oil that would kick in 15%, and a gas filter that would cut consumption 10% then proceeded to install them one afternoon--after he was done it was time to take it for a spin and he drove his car 15 miles and the gas tank overflowed.

We learn two lessons from these: one optimum performance does not rely on simply having a collection of the biggest, baddest parts simply thrown together regardless of whether or not they fit and just because you throw a bunch of stats together doesn’t mean that you add them up and come up with the correct total unless you understand what the numbers truly mean.

To me, this is my ongoing navel-gazing regarding the whole old school/new school battles over understanding baseball.

Every year, a given team will add a superstar player or two and it’s easy to assume that they can factor those totals (whether traditional/sabermetric/adjusted) onto the current roster and assume the team has added X number of wins.

A baseball team is not a collection of individuals acting in isolation--it’s a unit, a single entity, an engine if you will and for maximum performance a degree of thought has to be put into the individual parts and whether they can act as a single entity. A given part may not be a high end state-of-the-art piece of machinery but if it’s the correct part for the engine--one that improves its performance then that’s the piece the engine needs.

Just because you assemble a lineup of guys that average 100 runs scored per season doesn’t mean that a team is guaranteed to score 900 runs.

I’m not writing this to bash sabermetrics since I feel quite strongly that the sabermetric movement has been a major plus for baseball. To continue the analogy from a different perspective--if an engine needs a part, it would asinine to suggest (as an example) that a piece from a 1987 Crown Victoria is the correct piece just because 15 years ago the person making the suggestion bought a used Crown Vic and it was the best car they ever owned.

In short--the old school philosophy based on hunches, a previous good experience with no context is as disastrous as simply looking at players as numbers, throwing them together and adding the numbers together to see if it’s a winning combination and going from there.

An engine just doesn’t need parts--it needs fluids: oil, transmission fluid, antifreeze, power steering fluid etc.

If the players constitute the “parts” then perhaps the fluids represent the intangibles: chemistry, teamwork, leadership, hustle, grit--the never say die attitude--a team cannot function absent these things and the quality of them can be the determining factor between comparable engines/teams.

My point?

I’ve taken a lot of heat for my prediction that the Yankees are an 85 win team this year--many have pointed out the talent on hand and the additions made and all but guaranteed me a 95+ win club based on the numbers.

I know these things already.

However, I wasn’t dissing the Yankees--to me they’re a team in transition; they’re an old club--yes, they’ve added a couple of talented pitchers but then again in recent seasons they brought aboard other talented pitchers: Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Carl Pavano (the man was talented--it just ended at the Adam‘s apple), Jose Contreras, Jeff Weaver (don’t laugh--Weaver was 25 when he joined the team and had a 3.97 ERA over his previous 551 IP), Jon Lieber (4.10 ERA in 686.2 IP from 1999-2001) etc. but for whatever reason the Yankees didn’t get what they expected from them. The numbers were certainly there but when added to the engine, their (the pitchers) performance suffered--it was a poor fit for these men.

Hence, I am not automatically assuming that C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett will translate into Sabathia’s NL numbers or A.J.’s 2008 performance in 2009 with the Yankees. Yes, Mark Teixeira is a significant upgrade to Jason Giambi but Alex Rodriguez was an off-the-charts step up from Aaron Boone and what happened there?

The Bronx Bombers are still finding their way in the new information age; according to Joe Torre, Brian Cashman once suggested to him to bat Doug Mientkiewicz and Jason Giambi 1-2 in the batting order because of their high OBP.

Seriously.

They’re climbing a steep learning curve and are a bit behind--they’ll get there but there’s work still to be done.

Since Andy Pettitte was drafted, how many starting pitchers did the Yankees develop and retain that have tossed two seasons of 200 IP? How many have they drafted?

Almost 400.

Let’s face it--that is a staggering level of ineptitude…only Chien-Ming Wang (I’ll count 199.2 IP as good enough to qualify) since 1991.

This means that the organization has had to import their starting pitching--players developed by other clubs with differing philosophies; it worked when teams had trouble retaining their own talent but in Selig’s Brave New World fewer and fewer ace-quality pitchers hit the marketplace (or become available in trade) and have had to settle on guys that could perform in some environments but not necessarily in the Bronx.

The big change in the Yankees’ fortunes really came about between 2003-2004 when they lost Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and David Wells (the latter two being southpaws--duh) and went to an all right handed rotation (a bad fit in Yankee Stadium) and nobody in 2004 tossed 200 innings while the departed trio had all topped that mark the previous year.

Again, the importance of the right parts as opposed to the shiniest ones was demonstrated.

The Yankees added two right handed pitchers for 2009 but how many of the candidates for the rotation are consistent 200 inning starters and can be reasonably counted on to assume that kind of workload?

Sabathia is a good candidate, Pettitte might have one more 200 inning season in him, Wang might--but that’s far from a sure thing, Burnett has never had back-to-back 200+ inning seasons and the organization will not try to get that many out of Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy or Phil Hughes.

Will Sabathia and Burnett be Mike Mussina and Roger Clemens 2.0 or the second coming of Javier Vazquez and Carl Pavano? We won’t know and can’t assume the former (or the latter to be fair).

As to the offense, aside from age issues, they’re hoping Nick Swisher will replace Bobby Abreu’s production and barring a miracle that’ll be a step back plus A-Rod will be out for awhile.

Sure, there’s talent there but the 1965 Yanks looked good on a paper as well and were coming off four straight pennants.

The Yankees will be fine but I think they are in transition--a lot of players came off the books and next year Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui and Andy Pettitte will likely be gone as well.

Hence, I see an 85 win team and fair minds can disagree.

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about--the last time they won it all they were an 87-win team in the regular season.

Oh well, such are the hazards of prognostication.

P.S. For those who accuse me of being biased against the Yankees there’s a wonderful tool called “Google”--I think you’ll find about a 10:1 ratio of positive to negative articles when the club is a column topic for yours truly and there’s no way I could find work in the New York media with those kinds of numbers.

Best Regards

John

Tinfoil hat time!

2009-03-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

Now what?

I was looking forward to doing a post-mortem with Jack Marshall when the decision in the Bonds collusion arbitration case came down however a wrench has been thrown into the works. MLB/MLBPA agreed to postpone the grievance until after the trial so what happens now that the trial has been delayed?

Let’s face it, absent Greg Anderson’s testimony or the unlikely overturning of Judge Susan Ilston’s decision to exclude evidence that was illegally obtained; if it does go to trial Bonds’ has an excellent chance of skating plus the government runs the risk of having its dirty laundry brought out into the public purview plus Jeff Novitzky--a hero in the minds of many--would end up looking as bad as Bonds once the defense got through with him.

If the other agents working initially on the BALCO case are called to testify by the defense, Novitzky will end up being mentioned in the same breath--not with Elliot Ness--but Mark Fuhrman, another lawman whose comments aided a different African American superstar of professional sports in a courtroom…O.J. Simpson.

According to these ones “Jeff has never held back what he felt about Bonds” stating that “Novitzky hated Bonds”; “[Novitzky] envisioned congressional hearings, book deals and TV” and that BALCO “…was turned into a publicity stunt” to forward Novitzky’s career and his vendetta against the slugger. According to another agent, Novitzky stated regarding Bonds "He's such an [anus] to the press, I'd sure like to prove [that he used steroids]."

Toss in the fact that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) opened an investigation of Novitzky (that was nothing short of a godsend to BALCO founder Victor Conte) and the Bonds’ defense team has nothing short of a cornucopia of dirt on the agent.

Even if the government wins the battle and gets a conviction on any one of the counts (believe me, they’re willing to settle for that and declare victory) they could lose the war since their actions in pursuing the case will demonstrate that they are the ones that endanger the public well being and not the defendant.

After all, if you cherish your constitutional rights, Jeff Novitzky is the guy you need to keep an eye on--not Barry Lamar Bonds. Bonds might call you a nasty name or ignore you completely were you to approach him but he isn’t likely to break down your door without a warrant, seize your goods and later lie about what they did while inside or harass folks you care about.

The odds of seeing Bonds led away in shackles is a longshot at best.

One has to wonder why the government is pursuing this when it appears their objectives have been met regarding Bonds; I don’t think there is anyone that believes that he didn’t use anabolic steroids at some point in his career, his legacy has been irreversibly tarnished, his chances for the Hall of Fame is in jeopardy, he is out of baseball and will not return--in short: Barry Lamar Bonds has been disgraced.

To continue to pursue this would be to expose the low dealings of the government and Novitzky to the general public--many of whom still believe they’re doing the work of God in all this; they may get a conviction on one of counts but ultimately may end up looking like the real villains when all is said and done.

As of right now--they are at their best point in time: Bonds is wearing the black hat and the government can simply drop the case spinning it by saying they have bigger fish to fry and John Q. Public will feel that Bonds “got off” on a technicality but the Oedipus complexing offspring of unmarried parents was guilty of everything up to and including betraying Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver.

So why the delays?

Surely a man as intelligent as Novitzky has to realize that a trial will not serve his career or reputation well and the feds have to be suspecting that they might actually do the impossible and turn Bonds into a sympathetic character--especially if all the facts become public knowledge.

Even if they get Anderson to testify, the defense will most certainly detail chapter and verse the goon tactics used by the federal government to get his cooperation. When all is said and done (assuming their best case scenario and BLB is fitted with an orange jumpsuit) even the most ardent Bonds-basher may wonder if the right person was put behind bars.

Any fair minded person weighing the sins of Barry Lamar Bonds against those of the people pursuing him would be able to discern who are the truly dangerous folks and menace to their personal well being.

Therefore (pauses to don the tinfoil hat) are the two events somehow related? An indefinite postponement of the trial would seem to create an almost indefinite postponement of the collusion hearing. If the feds drop the case, the arbitration could proceed almost immediately and if MLB knows their guilty as sin they would have no illusion about how it would play out.

However, if they string it out a year or two, which would in turn delay the grievance which in turn would put Bonds at an age where there would be zero chance he could be given a major league job. It would certainly serve Novitzky’s vendetta well--he could crow to his friends that it was he that got Public Enemy No. 1 out of baseball thereby protecting impressionable children. Certainly the feds want to make sure Bonds is no longer part of the national pastime and if they cannot put him behind bars, they can take steps to ensure that he is barred from ever “contaminating” the game ever again.

While hard time would definitely cause Bonds’ anguish--could it be that the feds would consider inflicting the end of his career a nice consolation prize? After all, the bottom line in all this is making sure that the surly ballplayer learns some manners and if you’re going to be spoken of as one of the game’s greats then you have to make nice with the white power structure in society and the media.

I guess time will tell.

Best Regards

John

A match made in...?

2009-03-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, there is somebody on the players’ side of the baseball coin that has become almost indispensable to the New York Yankees.

Scott Boras.

To the casual observer it would seem it is the other way around--after all, with teams doing a lot of Selig-inspired belt tightening there appears to be only one club willing to break the bank with any kind of regularity and we all know who that is; that being the case how can it be said that the Yanks need Boras?

Glad you asked.

Revenue sharing has truly been a double edged sword to the fortunes of the Bronx Bombers: on the one hand, the amount of luxury taxes paid as well as baseball’s welfare program cost the Yankees a lot of coin (although they will pay less with the new yard since stadium costs can be deducted from their obligations), yet the other hand of the equation is what has harmed the Yanks.

This offseason has featured what has been the Yankees stereotypical modus operandi: look at free agent market, find highest profile player(s) on said market all culminating with massive amounts of money being thrown in the direction of said players. I forget who said/wrote it, but this offseason wasn’t so much a free agent spending binge as much as it was a simple restocking of the shelves since the club had so many expensive players with expired contracts. Their payroll will likely be lower this season than it was in 2008.

Regardless, it’s pretty clear that this is the Yankees primary approach to talent acquisition. The farm system isn’t where they look for raw materials and between high finishes and player purchases; they haven’t had optimal drafting positions for several years. All they can hope for is top amateurs falling in the draft due to signability issues and guess what kind of kids tend to be viewed as hard to sign in the draft?

Scott Boras clients.

However, this isn’t the main way Boras benefits the “Evil Empire.” After all, how many spots on the 25 man roster have been filled internally in recent seasons? There have been Melky Cabrera, Robbie Cano, Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes and none of the latter trio has established themselves as rotation stalwarts. The Yankees look either to trades of other clubs’ superstar “buyers’ remorse” contracts (often negotiated by Boras) or the free agent market.

The thing is, a lot of teams have used revenue sharing funds--not as money spent in the free agent market, but--as a way of locking up their best young developed talent through the arbitration years and 1-3 free agent seasons. This trend, designed to give teams a degree of cost certainty, has (1) kept teams from trading away their best arbitration eligibles for fear of losing big time and (2) kept the best young potential free agents from even hitting the marketplace where the Bronx bankroll awaits.

There is one notable exception to this pattern: players represented by Boras.

Boras is a big believer in getting his players into free agency where competitive bidding takes place and it’s generally understood that a player that wishes to sign an extension absent testing the market is done so against Boras’s advice.

With the free agent market becoming an increasingly inefficient way to build a competitive roster (for example: I predicted that David Purcey will probably enjoy a better 2009 than A.J. Burnett) and teams realizing (at least this year) that a multi-tooled, albeit inexperienced, player from their own system has as good a chance at delivering comparable value than a 1-2 dimensional slugger that cannot run, field or throw well that wants eight figures and is hovering around his mid-30’s.

If a team has developed a stud, clubs are more frequently locking them up and in a lot of cases revenue sharing and equitable distribution of new revenue streams are giving clubs the capital to do just that.

Further, players seem more inclined to take the extension offered rather than wait a season or two for free agency figuring that the money is available now and there’s no guarantee they will not get injured before they reach the threshold.

A good example is Johan Santana--he’ll been in professional baseball almost two decades without ever becoming a free agent consistently taking the money when offered rather than trying to get out into the marketplace.

This offseason might exacerbate the trend as experienced veterans for the most part didn’t see the offers they envisioned when they declined arbitration. With clubs hoarding draft picks as never before and teams increasingly realizing what is replaceable talent and what is not (such as middle relievers) more and more players might be inclined to avoid the perils of the free agent market (now that clubs are using it to their advantages) and simply grab the extension when it becomes available.

This means fewer and fewer quality free agents available to the Yankees.

It looks as if Boras clients may be their best shot at top flight free agents in the coming years.

It’ll be interesting to see what occurs when the Bronx Bombers decide to building clubs more economically.

The latest…

I’ve done a “Five Questions” preview of the Toronto Blue Jays for the Hardball Times that should go up soon. I hope to do another article (or two) for THT before “the big day” and once I take a few days off to recover, get back into my regular slot there before they forget about me (they’ve been trying for years but I’m like the stench from a particularly noxious blast of flatus--I just don’t go away).

Who’s afraid of the big bad Yanks? (SMSN Sports): Hey, they signed some talent but there are more holes on that roster than in my memory after I turned 40.

Bringing the game back to baseball (SMSN Sports): Why I think the WBC rocks.

Best Regards

John

WBCito

2009-03-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

I haven’t written much about the WBC (except for last week’s SMSN column that I’ll provide a link for as soon as this week’s is up) but it isn’t from a lack of interest in the event.

For me, I haven’t gotten too worked up about Canada’s fortunes in all this--I’m too busy enjoying watching real live baseball and checking out the talent that is being developed around the world. There has been some tremendous play from faces both familiar and otherwise and some great storylines and upsets.

Speaking of which--I may be risking my hoser citizenship but I was appalled when Rogers Sportsnet switched away from the first Dominican/Netherlands game with the underdogs protecting a one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth with none out and the speedy Willie Taveras on first to the Canada/US contest. I mean, here we’re watching an upset unfolding along the lines of the Miracle on Ice or Tyson/Douglas and instead of seeing the denouement of this remarkable game we get to see Jake Peavy pitch to the top of Team Canada’s batting order.

Look, I want the locals to win as much as the next guy but I prefer watching history being made. Nobody talks about what other program they were watching when Paul Henderson scored in the 1972 Summit Series and if in a few decades from now that game (as well as the rematch) becomes the stuff of legend nobody is going to give a rip about my telling folks how Peavy handled the top of the first inning against a team that was eliminated by the Italian jugger-not.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports was nice enough to let me cry on his shoulder about this and he assured me that I wasn’t crazy (shaddap) for feeling that way.

But I digress.

While enjoying watching Pedro Martinez (hopefully for not the last time), Joey Votto and thinking that the first team that really goes bonkers (bonkers?) in international scouting will have a huge advantage until other teams catch up, my mind (such as it is) began mulling about how all this might impact the Toronto Blue Jays in 2009.

Granted, there might seem to be much correlation at the moment but I did witness something of which I think Cito Gaston could make good use this season. Obviously, the biggest blow to the Blue Jays in the offseason was the fact that 60% of their rotation is gone and with Dustin McGowan’s setback it could be a long time before we see any resemblance to the 2007-08 starting staff at the Rogers Centre.

As of right now--three rotation spots are set with Roy Halladay, Jesse Litsch and David Purcey with Matt Clement coming on strong; now what to do with the fifth spot or if one of the other quartet goes down with an injury?

Yes, perish the thought that a Jays’ pitcher might get hurt but it helps to deal with every possible scenario regardless of how far-fetched it may seem at the time.

Currently, there are a ton of available pitchers: Casey Janssen, Rickey and Davis Romero, Brett Cecil, Brad Mills, Scott Richmond and possibly Wade Miller but there are concerns about overworking the likes of Cecil, the Romeros, Janssen and the rehabbing Miller--how does Gaston make it all work?

How about doing it WBC style?

In the tournament, starting pitchers are limited to 70 pitches in round one although they can finish the plate appearance of the hitter to whom they’ve thrown pitch No. 70. Why not take a variation of that and have co-starters--one day you start the game and let Cecil toss 70 pitches (unless he’s ineffective) and follow that with Casey Janssen for 70? The next time open with Janssen and follow with Cecil (and mix and match accordingly)--that way, the kiddie corps gets experience without the risk of overuse while the creaky corps (the rehabbing vets that make the 25-man roster) gradually get to rebuild their arm strength without worrying about carrying a load they haven’t borne since the U.S. government was in the business of catching big criminals and not large cranials.

The best part of this is that the rooks (hopefully) get reinforcement about the importance of throwing strikes and getting ahead of hitters--if they want to last long enough for a “W” they’d best not nibble and give the batters too much credit and attack the strike zone with their “A” material the same way they did in the minors.

A common stumbling lock for promising youngsters at the big league level for the first time is they stop doing what got them to that point in the first place; they sometimes give hitters too much credit and try to be too fine. One thing we’ve learned in watching the WBC is that a well thrown pitch in the strike zone is tough to hit--we’ve witnessed pitchers on Team Netherland that will likely never sniff a major league job get big league hitters--in some cases, elite bashers--out. Anything that drills into the heads of the youth movement that strike one and pitching ahead on the count is always a recipe for success--even at the major league level--is a good thing.

It probably won’t happen but I’m married with two teenaged daughters and I’m used to giving out advice that is completely ignored and made fun of--c’est la merde!

Thanks everyone…

I was genuinely touched with the show of support regarding my recent medical issues--thanks for the notes and mentions offering their best wishes. I met with the surgeon on Friday and says I should be in the O.R. in the next 2-4 weeks (although they haven’t given me a day and time yet). He seemed fairly confident that all I will need is an angioplasty but he can’t know that for a certainty until they get inside and have a look around.

Bottom line--I don’t expect to be down long; on the small chance that things to terribly awry I have made my wishes known that I want the surgeon to approach things “Mythbusters” style and do whatever it takes to blow me up. I’ve taken in a lot of nitro and don’t want it to go to waste.

If I gotta go…I wanna go out with a bang!

Best Regards

John

Not this again...

2009-03-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

About a month ago we discussed about the potential role player agents might have played in the whole steroid debacle. A quick refresher:

“There’s one guy we need to hear from in all this…

Scott Boras.

His agency does far more than represent professional athletes--he is also involved in the minutiae of his clients’ careers. He provides every service imaginable for his stable including psychological counselling. There are doctors, trainers everything required for building up a player to max out whatever talents exist in a given player’s body.

For all his faults, the man provides an incredibly high level of service for the men he represents. He often boasts about how involved his agency is in the professional lives of the players under the umbrella of Borascorp.

Some of the high profile names that have been part of all this in recent years include A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez, Eric Gagne, Kevin Brown, Rick Ankiel, Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds.

All have been linked to the sport’s steroid era either through BALCO, positive tests, the Mitchell Report and Jose Canseco’s literary masterpiece “Green Eggs and Deca” (AKA “Juiced”).

For a man so involved in the physical and psychological upkeep of his stable could he possibly have been so ignorant or so blinded to what the players were taking?”

Suffice it to say, I wasn’t overly surprised to find this nugget in “The Yankee Years”: player agents were often involved in procuring PED for their clients. Granted, it was Brian McNamee making the assertion but it is notable that he also pointed out that general managers had come up to him and said “We don’t care what they’re taking, I just don’t want to know about it.”

This information made it to George Mitchell’s ears according to McNamee but wasn’t considered pertinent enough to include in the Mitchell Report.

As time goes on it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Mitchell Report was little more than an expensive bit of propaganda for public and government consumption to hopefully put the steroid era into the last tense while pretty much giving management absolution while offering up enough names to make it clear that (1) it was all the greedy players’ fault (2) the problem is now licked and (3) Bud Selig has now officially done everything in his power to rid the sport of the anabolic menace.

I think in the not too distant future we’ll find out more and more about what Mitchell wilfully ignored and that a handpicked member from the side of management produced a tome that reflected the investigator’s vested interests. It was little more than one of Selig’s beloved “Blue Ribbon Reports” he points to that allegedly provide answers to the problems vexing the sport and are always completed with minimal to zero (closer to zero) input from the players’ side.

I just find it odd that nobody seems interested in investigating the agents’ role in all this--then again, that would only happen if they were truly interested in getting to the bottom of things instead of simply creating an illusion that the problem was thoroughly dealt with and eradicated.

Plus ca change.

Jeter…

What’s funny about Torre and Verducci’s recollection is how Derek Jeter is portrayed: the ultimate team player that is ultra focused on winning--the one that leads the way to victory. Throughout the book we see time and again examples of Jeter doing whatever it took on and off the field to ensure that the New York Yankees would ascend to the summit of October baseball. If a teammate needed support--Jeter was there; if a player needed to be set straight it was Jeter that would do so; if Torre needed a message sent to the troops Jeter would be the messenger and if Torre required a change in program he could count on Jeter’s unconditional support to make it work for the betterment of the New York Yankees.

It was always about winning; about the glory of the pinstripes--no matter how difficult the problem or personality of someone on the roster it was Derek Jeter flying to the rescue a la Superman to straighten out the erring teammate and keep the machinery running smoothly.

Jeter was the consummate professional--nothing shook him from the annual goal of winning the World Series and he would lead the way and unclutter the path to October; he would literally do whatever it took, no matter how distasteful to get it done.

However, what became clear is that he had a massive blind spot--Alex Rodriguez. If anyone could’ve eased A-Rod’s transition to the pinstriped empire it was Jeter and I don’t think there’s a person alive that feels that a focused, hitting-on-all-cylinders Alex Rodriguez wouldn’t be a major asset in winning games, series, post season berths and championships.

Yet, something funny happened--it turned out there was something Jeter found more important than winning and that was making sure that Alex Rodriguez knew that he was still ticked over his comments in Esquire. No matter how much A-Rod struggled to fit in, to contribute to the team’s success Jeter seemed quite content to watch Rodriguez struggle in the New York spotlight.

His actions (or inaction) made it clear early, often and repeatedly that the third baseman was on his own and that the fans and the media were free to “have at 'im” with Jeter’s tacit approval. So what if A-Rod’s struggles with himself and his game might cost a few games and even a post season series or two--it seemed for all the world that Jeter now viewed winning as demonstrating on a daily basis that he was the crown prince of the Bronx and Rodriguez wasn’t.

What was worse, is that Torre was reluctant to tell Jeter to man up and do whatever was needed to make Rodriguez feel emotionally settled enough to play at his best. The Yankee roster would try every other solution to help A-Rod get it together, to get his head straight except have Jeter do what he did for so many other struggling teammates.

While Torre/Verducci used up an entire chapter to discuss the problems with Alex Rodriguez it is pretty clear that there was fault from both sides in getting the new arrival to fit in with the team dynamic. After seeing Jeter portrayed as the modern day “Pride of the Yankees” in the early part of the book--especially during the glory years of 1996-2000 we witness what appears to be a stark change in the shortstop once he realizes that he’s king of the mountain.

He reminds us of the alpha female in a high school sophomore class dealing with a new female student that is every bit as pretty as she and feels threatened. While the Yankees might have “lost their way” after the departure of the class of 96-00 it appears that St. Derek might have forgotten what got him to the top in his preoccupation to making sure everyone realized that he now determined who was worthy to wear the fabled pinstripes and would be anointed “a true Yankee.”

Best Regards

John

The Bud the...

2009-03-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well, let’s get back to the fascinating stuff in “The Yankee Years.”

To begin with--how much do you think the commissioner of baseball is aware of the official goings-on at the annual baseball winter meetings? One would think the commander-and-chief of the sport should have a pretty good handle on the agenda and whatnot.

Rewind to 1998: the baseball winter meetings in Nashville…there, MLB medical director Dr. Robert Millman and Dr. Joel Solomon (he served the MLBPA in the same capacity) made a presentation to various baseball executives and team physicians about the benefits of testosterone usage. Simply put, they were asserting that there was little medical evidence that steroids were harmful.

We’re reminded of MLBPA No. 2 Gene Orza’s claim that steroids were no more hazardous than cigarettes. How true that is (to what degree) I have no idea--all I know is that one player’s smoking will not coerce another to do likewise to keep up.

But I digress.

If Bud Selig can claim that he was ignorant of steroids in the game in 1998 he is either (1) a liar or (2) too stupid to live yet alone be the CEO of a billion dollar industry.

Probably the most disturbing aspect of all this is the union’s role in all this--the thing is, Marvin Miller is a principled man; we can argue until we’re blue in the face about the value of some of his principles but I feel comfortable that his are of good faith if occasionally misguided.

I’ve often felt that Don Fehr was cut from the same cloth--I’ve differed with Fehr on a number of issues over the years yet not once did I ever feel he was being dishonest, dishonourable, capricious or underhanded. I have believed that while he occasionally could be imprudent he would always be acting in a manner that demonstrated good motives.

I think he is basically a good man but I can’t help but wonder if he lost his way somehow.

The big problem for a man like Fehr is that to affect significant change in MLB require that he work with completely amoral individuals that are ultra focused on improving profits regardless of the ethics involved (or ignored) and since the fiscal succubi of MLB realize that the quickest way to more money is damaging the MLBPA it’s easy to empathize why he would be leery of any joint ventures requiring becoming bedfellows with such ones.

We’ve seen that with drug testing--players are falling right, left and center while the commissioner is feigning either ignorance or diligence on the issue. No owner or commissioner has been called before a grand jury, nobody’s prosecuting any member of management for misleading statements made before the various government committees regarding drugs or their economic status over the years and nobody on that side is facing jail time or government scrutiny.

Marvin Miller said these things would happen if drug testing were brought into the sport and we’ve seen it occur--the media focuses on the Barry Bonds, the Alex Rodriguez’s, the Mark McGwire’s and the Roger Clemens decrying their lack of honour while the vast majority of anyone on the management side has all but been given a free pass by the government, media and general public despite their obvious complicity.

Small wonder that Fehr was/is reticent about dealing with such ones where trust is of paramount importance.

What makes me wonder if Fehr jumped the tracks due to Gene Orza; Orza is allegedly the one that tried to find enough false positives to drop the ratio of positive results in the 2003 survey testing below 5% that provided the window of opportunity for the samples to be seized by the government, he has been accused of tipping players about upcoming tests, he’s the one that trivializes the effects of steroid use.

It’s hard not to get the impression that he has no problem with players using steroids even if it means coercing other players to use to keep up and obtaining the drugs from dubious and unhygienic sources further risking their health. It’s a completely irresponsible position when you consider that giving workers a safe and healthy work environment is a sacred tenet of any union.

However, the salary bar is the sacred cow the modern MLBPA--not worker well being.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d suppose that Fehr is trying to merge or balance two philosophies--the ones espoused by Miller and the ones adhered to by Orza and the mix is toxic. Miller lacks pragmatism on the issue while Orza lacks compassion. Fehr should’ve been more proactive and creative--possibly setting up something in house. While Fehr believes that mandatory testing is a violation of privacy why couldn’t he have set up a “probable cause” regulation (along the lines the sport had in the 1980’s) for the union where a player would be tested if the MLBPA thought a player was juicing?

It wouldn’t be that hard--just set up an tips hotline where players could anonymously inform the union if they had strong reason to believe a teammate was using anabolic steroids. A positive test (from a union administered test) would result in sanction (such as loss of licensing money for a first offense and revocation of membership for a second offense) and he could’ve tried to create an environment where usage would be frowned upon. In short--create peer pressure to play clean and hit them in the pocketbook when they don’t; after all, if an economic incentive causes players to use then certainly incentives not to use could be put in place.

All this could happen out of the public eye without management’s knowledge.

Sadly, as has often happened in MLB things only go to extremes where both sides think in win-lose scenarios; both sides feel that for them to win, the others must lose. This has been the mindset within the game since Marvin Miller became executive director of the MLBPA.

Unfortunately, Miller was one who sought “unconditional surrender” on a lot of issues--including drug use by players. If owners wanted to get rid of the perception of drug use by players (be it recreational or performance-enhancing) he was adamantly against it--not so much because he wanted players to use drugs but rather the issues of privacy were more important. If that meant players should be allowed to break the law--so be it; that was a concern for the judicial system and not MLB.

There was no middle ground.

Fehr cut his teeth on Miller’s ideologies and while the vast majority were bang on--Miller is imperfect like the rest of us and prone to blind spots.

Regardless, what is done is done but one thing we all need to do is get as accurate a picture of this era as possible. We should never forget that despite his recent male bovine fecal matter on the subject, Bud Selig is a big reason steroid use within the sport grew to the extent it did. He doesn’t care if players use steroids as long as the public and government think it is and he is painted as the man that rid the sport of the scourge.

Best Regards

John

Winning...

2009-03-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Getting back to “The Yankee Years” I was struck with an odd epiphany: winning means different things to different players; in a perfect world, we would hope that all 25 players on our rooting interest’s roster all desperately want to win the World Series and that winning means winning games, winning series, winning playoff berths, winning playoffs and of course the big enchilada--winning the World Series.

After all, how could it be any less? These guys are hyper-competitive, they had to beat our other players from little league through AAA to reach the majors, they’re used to success so surely once they finally nab one of the 750 available big league jobs they are fully and unconditionally committed to the next logical goal--the final dog pile of a given season.

I mean--what else is their possibly to win once you reach the major leagues?

Believe it or not--quite a bit.

Players are as pragmatic as the next guy and realize that generally the odds of being one of the chosen few to enjoy the ultimate moment of October glory is a longshot year in and year out. However, there are other things a player might try to win: a regular job, an All Star berth, post season awards, their first seven (or possibly eight) figure salary, free agency and a massive contract; for a pitcher it could be 20 wins, 200 strikeouts, an ERA title, 50 saves or possibly a promotion from setup man to closer, from reliever to starter etc. A position player might view a win in terms of 30 HR, 40 doubles, 50 steals, 200 hits, a .300 average or topping the century mark in runs scored or RBI.

These things are freely available to a player each and every year (for the most part) whereas they realize that unless things break right in the early going it’s very difficult to realistically envision a shot at winning it all. Even if they are fully committed to it after a 30-35 start to the season, how many guys in the locker room truly share the same optimism and drive? If in their heart of hearts they feel maybe a handful of teammates want to keep digging game in and game out for the brass ring how good would they feel their chances are of getting out of that particular hole with only lukewarm support?

On the other hand, personal goals remain attainable for a much longer part of the season often requiring little more than a decent hot streak to keep them within range of those achievements.

Toss in a few other factors: what if a few of your compatriots are in the final year of their contract or up for arbitration for the first time? Will they be willing to sacrifice their personal stats to try to win a game when the team is 30-35 and they’re down in the eighth inning of a two-run game with man on first and second and nobody out?

Do they move the runners along, try to get the ball to the right side, attempt to make contact and go for a base hit or even be willing to take a walk when the count is 3-1 and the fastball isn’t necessarily in their dead-red power zone or do they go for the glorious three-run jack and try to be a hero and add three ribbies to their tally even though they bat second?

Or would they shorten their stroke and choke up on the bat, simply try for a single and at the very least make sure the runners move up even if it means taking a walk and letting the guy behind them have the RBI?

These decisions are made in every game by every team in every spot in the standings and the deciding factor is what a given player views winning and success to be and it isn’t necessarily synonymous with winning the Fall Classic. The odds of winning the World Series may be slim to none in some players’ minds but the odds of getting an extra million in the next contract are excellent if they finish with 100 as opposed to 97 RBI.

It would seem that a lot of players embrace a philosophy that what is good for them is good for the team and (as an example) what team couldn’t use a 100 RBI man? If everybody felt as that player did and everybody in the everyday lineup got to 100 RBI then chances are good that they’d win the division--right?

On the surface it seems logical but in reality it doesn’t work because sometimes the goals of one player (100 RBI) comes at the expense of another player’s goal (100 RBI) and frictions develop, finger pointing begins, accusations of selfish play begin and hopes of winning it all begin to dwindle.

Remember--these guys are human; not accumulations of statistical data.

Getting back to the thoughts in the Torre/Verducci book that is what distinguished the 1996-2001 Yankees from the 2002-present Yankees; for the most part the team put together a group of very talented players and achieved a unity of purpose--winning it all regardless of the effects on individual numbers. After they lost the 2001 World Series to the Diamondbacks a lot of those core players moved on and a bunch of extremely talented players were added every year but often these players didn’t define winning the same way.

I’m not saying they didn’t want to win it all--they did; but to hear Torre tell it, they didn’t want to win it all at the expense of all other considerations. It seemed that men like Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Carl Pavano, Raul Mondesi, Jeff Weaver, Kenny Lofton etc. had other goals, motivations and distractions which affected the team’s ability to perform at its optimal level.

As I said the other day--it’s an interesting look behind the scenes; I don’t necessarily accept it all as gospel but it does give some food for thought and an additional data point when analyzing success or failure and getting a better grasp on the so-called "intangibles."

Best Regards

John

Taking a step back....

2009-03-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

Ugh.

Let’s give the chorus their happily ever after and imagine for a moment watching the evening news and watching Barry Bonds shackled at the wrists, clad in an orange jumpsuit heading for a vacation at the public’s expense.

The media orgasms and many have a warm glow. We hear plaudits about how the children have learned a valuable lesson from Bonds’ conviction.

Final price tag: somewhere between $60-100 million.

According to USDA 2007, just fewer than 11 percent of American households experience food insecurity. Put another way, 35.5 million Americans including 12.6 million children were not always sure when or where they would eat their next meal in 2006. With job losses mounting due to the global economic meltdown coupled with the increasing population we can be sure that the total is much higher today.

It is probably north of 15 million right now but we’ll just use 15 million for this; don’t you feel better now with Bonds incarcerated? Just think, there are 15 million children in the U.S. of A that will go to bed in the aftermath of this with three thoughts: “steroids are bad” "perjury is wrong" and “I’m so hungry.”

Of course, with government funding cuts coming to many school nutritional programs many may not eat anything of substance since there’s little at home and nothing at school.

But at least the children are safer with Barry Lamar Bonds behind bars. I’m sure they’re suitably grateful that the government, media and many overweight sports fans are so concerned with their well being that they cheered from the sidelines as perjury laws were broken, constitutional rights violated and money that could have been used to feed them were used by people determined to put Barry Lamar Bonds in the clink for perjury over his anabolic steroid usage.

Of course, this hasn’t happened yet much to the chagrin of many in the media and those that believe everything they read; the potential delay of Bonds’ trial as the government prosecution is looking to postpone it as they seek to appeal Judge Susan Ilston’s refusal to allow certain evidence to be used in court because of how it was obtained in some cases (such as violations of the fourth amendment and perjury as Jeff Novitzky apparently deceived the court, charging that the agent’s affidavit for a search warrant “did not disclose that a grand jury subpoena had been issued for the same material and that a motion to quash the subpoena was pending in the same district”—deceiving the court is perjury for those of you scoring at home).

However, if you want to protect the children you need to fight evil with evil; if Bonds commits perjury and breaks the law then the law must be broken and perjury committed and tens of millions of tax dollars be committed (even if children go to bed hungry) so justice can be done!

Barry Lamar Bonds is a bad man but if “society needs protected from big headed liars” as one enlightened person opined on the San Francisco Chronicle’s feedback section then might I suggest people equip their children with polygraph machines and a measuring tape as a means of defence against any “big headed liars” like Bonds that may menace them on their way to school? If a man from a van asks them to come aboard with the promise of candy be sure to train them to hook them up to the polygraph machine, ask them if they’ve ever used steroids and ask for a cranial measurement; if it checks out it’s all good!

Hop on board, eat the candy and enjoy the ride—what’s the worst thing that can happen since society is working hard to get big headed liars off the street?

Yes, Bonds is not somebody to look up to but from my point of view those that are hoping to see him do time regardless of the costs required (monetary and otherwise) pose a much bigger danger to children. Let them starve for their own good—malnutrition is bad but possibly growing up and playing major league baseball while denying using steroids is far, far worse so let’s do what’s right and make sure Barry Lamar Bonds suffers for what he did.

Hopefully one day folks will have their dreams come true and wake up to that glorious morning where they can begin their day with the heady knowledge that their quality of life is much better now that Bonds is behind bars.

I wonder how many will spend that first day going into the poorer sections of where they live and telling the hungry children that despite the rumblings in their stomachs they’re far better off than they were the day before?

Seeing as this has all been for their benefit we can only assume that the municipalities will have adequate crowd control personnel on hand to deal with the overflow.

Or not.

Yes, Bonds broke the law and may well skate but guess what? There are a lot of child molesters, brokers in kiddie porn and the child-sex trade out there that have broken the law and have yet to face justice.

Where do we want law enforcement and government money being spent on: eradicating these evils or making sure a surly ballplayer does hard time? Do we want to see eight figures spent of feeding children or seeing a PED using ballplayer that lied to the government but isn't named Miguel Tejada behind bars?

It’s about perspective—we’ve lost all semblance of it.

Best Regards

John

The Yankee Years...

2009-03-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

Well, I just finished the controversial Joe Torre/Tom Verducci screed and will be doing a formal review in the very near future. Regardless, it will provide fodder for a lot of columns and thoughts throughout the season.

To begin with, I think the initial rhetoric over the book was way over the top. I really didn’t get the feeling that anyone was being thrown “under the bus” even though selected excerpts taken out of context might make it appear that way.

For the most part, it seemed like a good faith effort by Torre in detailing his time with the Yankees and the various people he came into contact with--it seemed fair even though I wouldn’t take as gospel everything in it having only heard his side of the story. It actually served as a very insightful behind-the-scenes look at how winning teams are put together and that while talent is indispensable--a lot more is needed to create a championship ball club.

Quite frankly, within the pages you get a fairly good idea of “tangiblizing” (not a real word obviously) what is often referred to as the "intangibles." I’ll probably get into this in more detail at The Hardball Times this year but I came up with an analogy that I think best describes how an inferior collection of players can form a better team than a bunch of superstars.

When I use the word “inferior” I don’t mean vastly so, think in terms of the difference between a team with the talent levels of the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays--the Jays are an inferior team but can generally hold their own against the denizens of Fenway even though the Red Sox would generally be expected to win.

Anyway, imagine a tug-of-war between 25 bodybuilders and perhaps 25 high school football players; generally, you would give the edge to the big, beefy barbell boys in such a match up as well you should. However, suppose the bodybuilders each decided to pull the rope in whatever direction suited them; to the left, right, upward, toward the ground, backward etc. while the all the high school football players pulled the rope in the same direction…

Well, that’s the picture I got when comparing the Yankees of 1996-2001 to the 2002-present; the earlier edition didn’t have the sheer talent on hand of the latter clubs but they did all pull in one direction and were enormously successful. The overspending Yankee teams of later vintage pulled in all directions--they were too talented not to win at least 90 games most years but there were too many directions--too many agendas on the team and not a consistent focus.

It does show up.

The baseball season is a marathon and as such there is sentiment of “We’ll get 'em tomorrow” if things go bad at some point in a game and while everybody on the field is certainly putting forth effort, it’s with an expectation of failure on that given day which can become a self fulfilling prophecy. However, at what point does a team reach that mindset in a game: after getting down six runs in the early going; three unearned runs breaking up a tie game in the sixth; when there’s a match up of No. 1 starters and one of them gives up a three-spot before getting an out?

Or, is there such a “desperation to win” as the book says that they’re busting their butt trying to win until the final out is recorded and expect to defy the odds and pull out a victory?

Teams (and players) do vary quite a bit in that respect.

It’s all part of the somewhat quantified intangibles that I learned from the book.

Probably the biggest tangible difference between the pre-post 2001 Yankees was the depth and quality of the starting pitching and the numbers do bear this out but you don’t fully appreciate how huge it was until you delve into Torre’s thoughts on the matter.

Again, this is just a basic overview as I will expound more thoroughly on these and other aspects of it in the near future.

At any rate, I do think that Torre had good reason to be unapologetic about what he contributed--for instance, for the first time I actually feel an affinity for Alex Rodriguez. He comes across in the book as unmistakably human with all too human quirks, foibles, insecurities etc. It’s easy to see that not having a strong male role model growing up stunted his personal growth and I feel more strongly than ever that he was exploited by Scott Boras who knew precisely what buttons to push.

Further, he had trouble fitting into the Yankees’ clubhouse largely because how he was treated (read: spoiled) by Seattle and Texas. He seems to have had drummed into his head that the best way he could help his club win was by being incredibly self-centered about his statistics. Somebody made the world revolve A-Rod and he came into a team where the world revolved (or once did) winning it all with little regard to personal numbers and he was lost in such an environment.

Remember Steve Phillips remarks about Boras’s outrageous demands when Rodriguez was a free agent after 2000 while Phillips was GM of the Mets? It’s hard not to believe Phillips in light of the preferential treatment A-Rod received in Texas and it was a major culture shock to both Rodriguez and his new teammates when the Bronx Bombers traded for him.

If anything, Torre and Verducci make the future Hall of Famer finally seem human and quite frankly, I find myself liking him a lot more than I did before I read the book and hope he finally conquers his inner demons.

Speaking of which…

I’m going to have to do a lot of thinking about my view of statistics. Regular readers of my work know that while I generally accept a not insignificant number of sabermetric principles I am by no means a sworn advocate of “(most) everything is explained by the numbers.” As Torre says, the game has a heartbeat and the player's blood flows the same as anyone else. My latest mental quandary surrounds whether the same numbers (even sabermetrically adjusted) are of equal value. It’s sort of a “chicken-or-egg” question in that I wonder if a collection of terrific statistical accumulators automatically makes a winning team or whether winning teams simply end up with players with terrific accumulated stats.

It’s along the lines of my thoughts on run distribution over raw accumulation.

I’m probably not explaining myself really well right now but let me put it another way: take two lineups of slightly unequal talent; the (batting) team with the better talent each unequivocally set the goal of hitting 30 HR and driving in 100 runs come hell or high water. The lesser team simply worries about winning each game unconcerned with personal stats--which team would win over the course of the season? Who would end up with the better statistics?

Let’s look at two seasons of Yankee third basemen: Alex Rodriguez in 2004 and Scott Brosius in 1998:

Player AVG   OBP   SLG  HR  RBI  OPS+
A-Rod .286  .375  .512  36  106  131
S-Bro .300  .371  .472  19   98  121

Now, put 2004 Rodriguez on the 1998 Yankees and Brosius on the 2004 club and how much of a difference does it make on those two teams despite Rodriguez’s better stats? The answer seems simple based on the numbers but does the “when” those hits/walks/outs occurred and their impact on their teammates factor in and if so--how much?

I don’t know--it’s something I will be exploring.

My latest mischief…

Follow the…Buddy? (Hardball Times)

Bud Selig: Buddy or bully? (SMSN Sports)

The golden age of drug use in baseball (SMSN Sports)

A personal note…

As you’ve no doubt noticed, my contributions here and at THT are down. I’m sorry about that--I have been dinged with a health issue regarding my heart and it’s--barring a miracle--going to require surgery and likely quite soon. Between my energy level being almost nil coupled with my body adjusting to shots of nitro and a steady diet of beta blockers even getting out of bed is a chore some days (daze?).

Nitro is what I like to call “instant hangover”--one spray, wait one minute and feel like Andrew Stoeten and Dustin Parkes after a night of merry-making.

Nasty, nasty stuff.

Hopefully, all I’ll require is an angioplasty but there does loom the chance of bypass surgery--if it’s the latter I have no idea how long I’ll need to get back in earnest. If it’s the former it should be pretty straightforward. I’ve kept myself in good shape with good personal habits and I have supernatural recuperative powers and will not need much down time.

No, I'm not getting old--now shut up and either pull my finger or get off my lawn!

Regardless, I don’t think my life is in danger and cannot

(had you going--didn't I?)

...wait for the energy bounce back after my body has recovered from the shock of surgery. I expect to cover the baseball season as cantankerously and petulantly as always. In the meantime, I’m going to keep writing as much as my energy level and personal feelings of grievance and indignation will allow so consider yourselves forewarned.

Best Regards

John

Sud bucks...

2009-02-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

Where to start?

While I have a few questions regarding Alex Rodriguez’s mea culpa I cannot help but be struck at the almost simultaneous event of Bud Selig doing the exact opposite--hey, not my fault the out of commission(er) is saying about all this; in fact ol’ Budley DooWrong stated: "Starting in 1995, I traied to institute a steroid policy. Needless to say, it was met with strong resistance. We were fought by the union every step of the way.”

Yet, this is the same guy that stated regarding ‘95: "If baseball has a problem, I must say candidly that we were not aware of it. It certainly hasn't been talked about much."

Despite not talking about it much they were trying to implement a steroid policy?

Ho'kay.

Rewind to aught-five and we get: "I never even heard about it. I ran a team, and nobody was closer to their players. And I never heard any comment from them. It wasn't until 1998 or '99 that I heard the discussion ... I don’t know if there were allegations in the early 90s. I never heard them.” Fast forward one year and ol’ Buddy testified under oath: "In 1994, before anybody was really talking about steroids in baseball, we proposed a program of testing for such substances to the MLBPA. As early as 1998, I began formulating a strategic plan to eliminate the use of performance enhancing substances from the game."

Uh, yeah. Despite their being no allegations he was aware of in the early 1990’s and nobody discussing the subject they were going ahead on dealing with steroids in 1994 (didn't he say 1995?) even though he had never heard about the drugs?

Clearly, Selig hasn’t heard about the internet--it’s a place where anyone can access what one has said in that past but I guess he isn’t aware of it and like A-Rod (ironically enough) says whatever he feels forwards his agenda at that point in time.

I find it striking that everyone is going along with the revisionist history of the so called “steroid era” that Selig is trying to implement--the players are apologizing and management is posturing as the unwitting victims of the players’ avarice and the media is doing their part (mostly because they wish folks would forget their sorry role in all this) to help it along.

Pathetic.

Anyway, for those lamenting the taint on A-Rod’s and Barry Bonds numbers I have one question: what does an untainted stat look like anyway? I mean, when is the mythical time and place when we can look at the numbers and state unequivocally that they’re completely honest?

For instance, we cannot accept the stats accumulated before 1947 since some of the best players weren’t allowed to play in the big leagues. The end of WWII brought amphetamines into the game plus for 1969 the mound was lowered and the strike zone shrunk which altered pitching and hitting totals and amphetamines and anabolic steroids have been in the game since the 1970’s. As we stated earlier, Tom House stated that 6-7 pitchers per staff (when pitching staff personnel were numbered in single digits) were monkeying around with forms of steroids and HGH when disco was king and check this out:

"drug use exists...in all sports and levels of competition...In some instances, the danger of improper drug use--primarily amphetamines and anabolic steroids--can only be described as alarming"--The 1973 House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce

Again I ask--what years can we look at the numbers and claim unadulterated purity?

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but untainted baseball stats simply do not exist--all of them have to be put into the context of the times in which they were garnered. The next “pure” era of the sport will be the first. The thing is, nobody takes seriously the single season strikeout totals of Matt Kilroy (513), Toad Ramsey (499) and Hugh Daily (483) because the pitching distance was just 45' and just for gits and shiggles, consider the following:

Kilroy set the record in his rookie season at age 20; he threw 583 innings, and had a 29-34, 3.37 ERA campaign--that ERA was about league average. Ramsey was a sophomore at 21 and tossed 588.2 IP and went 38-27, 3.43 ERA and Daily was positively ancient (36) but in only his third professional season. Despite a solid ERA (2.43; 124 ERA+) Daily was merely a .500 pitcher at 28-28 and logged a whisker over 500 innings.

Those numbers seem unreal today but then again Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds’ 70+ HR seasons would look pretty bizarre to our trio of moundsmen that toiled in leagues where eight and 13 four-baggers led the circuit. Then again, when Curtis Granderson legged out 23 triples in 2007--the last player to top that total was Kiki Cuyler who managed to bang out 26 three baggers in 1925. Sam Crawford topped 20 triples five times, Ty Cobb did it on four occasions--do you know who the last player was that had more than one season of 20 or more triples?

Stan Musial.

Have baseball players gotten slower? Have they gotten worse? Why the drastic decline in triples--has the level of play regressed or simply changed?

The answer is obvious.

What has to be borne in mind is that the record book is what it is--a log of what occurred and who accomplished what; no asterisks are needed. Barry Bonds hit 73 HR over the wall and 762 career, Hank Aaron hit 755 with a season high of 45 and smacked 44 'taters four times, Babe Ruth walloped 714 with a personal best of 60--these events happened.

What is important is the history--the history tells us the circumstances and environment those numbers were accumulated in; it informs us of the level of competition faced and what type of equipment was used etc. These things tell us what we need to know to establish legacies and legends. It’s why folks care about Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax and not Matt Kilroy or Toad Ramsey; it’s why Lefty O Doul and Riggs Stephenson aren’t in the Hall of Fame despite career batting averages of .349 and .336. It’s why Bobby Mathews' 297 career wins and four seasons of 30 or more wins (with a career best 42) and two others at 29 victories plus a BB/9 of .97 and a 2.98 ERA in almost 5000 IP isn’t enshrined in Cooperstown.

It’s why Alex Rodriguez may eventually wear the home run crown.

More to come on this in the days ahead.

Ode to Bud…

In honour of Selig’s mindlessness in all this, I’ve reworked a “Wizard of Oz” classic song (guess which one?) to pay a fitting tribute--enjoy:

I could chase away steroids
Even test for hemmorhoids
And hide my urine stains
And my head I'd be scratchin'
'bout which teams need contractin'
If I only had a brain

I'd unravel any riddle
'bout Barry's tainted piddle
Or A-Rod's career stain

With the thoughts I'd be thinkin'
'bout why the nads are shrinkin'
If I only had a brain

Oh, I would tell you why
I'm such a fiscal whore
I could wring some bling from the Yanks' rev'nue source
And get a raise, be paid still more

I would not be just a nuffin'
My shirt all full of stuffin'
My pockets of ill gotten gain
I would dance and be merry
Since I'm such a dingleberry
If I only had a brain

Best Regards

John

The indelible scarlet letter...

2009-02-14T05:57:00.000-08:00

I think we’re safely at the point where we can state that once a player is accused of steroid usage he is guilty in the eyes of public opinion. It is why the identities of the 103 remaining names of the 2003 survey testing should be guarded with extreme prejudice.

When the accusation has dropped, we’ve seen players respond in a number of ways yet one theme holds undeniably true--nobody believes them.

Not only that, if they do deign to confess, that confession is viewed with suspicion unless they declare that they’ve juiced their entire professional career and continue to do so until this very day. It is generally assumed that whatever the perpetrator has admitted isn’t the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and he’s holding back some details so it won’t look so bad.

We’ve had a chance to witness a number of confessions over the years and among the star players they are--without a doubt--viewed with suspicion. Nobody believes that the accused have been completely forthright. Those who claim they’re innocent are generally viewed to be lying and it doesn’t matter what the player does or how he makes his assertion he simply will not be believed. Let’s look at the example of Roger Clemens and John Q. Public’s reaction to how he has handled things (a shout out to fellow primate Ray DiPerna for drawing the map):

First Clemens outright denies the charge through his attorney. The public says “If he were really innocent he would speak to the people directly.”

He does so and releases a video statement to that effect, however the public remains skeptical and says “If he were really innocent he would deign to be interviewed”--a form of public cross-examination--so he faces the tough Mike Wallace to plead his case.

However, the public still refuses to believe him and states: “If he were really innocent he would make himself available to the media to clear his name” he does this, but no dice since now the people say that “If he were really innocent he would sue the person making the allegations and accusations against him.”

Clemens now sues Brian McNamee--the source of the claim against him but nothing changes as the masses state “If he were really innocent he would deny steroid use under oath in front of the government" and guess what?

He is still guilty in the court of public opinion. Clemens jumped through every hoop folks demanded that a player go through to defend his innocence and it wasn’t good enough--they still wanted more; bottom line: to be accused is to be guilty and to be guilty (as previously noted) is to be a juicer from cradle to grave and being interred with a syringe sticking out the casket.

For those who defend themselves by pointing out that every accusation has produced a juicer then think: there have been a lot of accusations tossed out and players implicated--up to 80 percent of players by some. That being the case, then we can safely assume the number is that high can we not? After all, Tom House stated back in the 1970’s that (1) 6-7 pitchers per pitching staff were using either steroids or human growth hormone and (2) that number has decreased in recent years.

Decreased to 80 percent of players? Hey, that’s the logical conclusion of believing every claim and pointed finger at a player regarding steroid usage.

What does that say about how level the playing field was (and is)--if that many players are on steroids then doesn’t it stand to reason that what has been achieved in the game has occurred with nobody with a competitive advantage over others? This in turn would make Barry Bonds' records fairly legitimate would it not? He faced juiced pitchers and the fielders chasing down his shots did so with juiced legs and juiced reflexes. If that many were on steroids then it was pretty much a zero-sum game for Bonds, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez et al.

Now you know why it’s so important that the 103 remaining names that came up positive in the survey testing in 2003--there will be a small number of false positives and players that took a tainted supplement. What hasn’t received near enough press is what happened in 1994--DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act) was signed into law. What this did was allowing the manufacturers of supplements to put products on the market without having to prove that they were completely safe and untainted with anabolic substances; DSHEA meant that the FDA would have to establish there was no problem with these things after they hit the marketplace.

Make no mistake--a lot of supplements had steroidal elements to help them deliver the promised gains and these could be purchased at any pharmacy and GNC and also bear in mind that “euphemisms” for various hormones in them would be used so as not to trigger suspicion and some wouldn’t be listed at all. Athletes of all stripes bought these by the bucketful and ingested large quantities of these things never knowing that they could potentially result in a positive test for steroids.

Chances are excellent that some of the 104 positives from the survey testing were just that--remember: the players knew that testing was coming and would’ve prepared for it accordingly but 104 still flunked which would indicate that some were ingesting steroids through supplements not realizing what was in them.

That, ladies and gentlemen why those 103 names need to remain anonymous--to protect that small handful that were false positives and the result of tainted supplements because were those names to be revealed they would be tried and convicted of being lifetime hardcore steroid abusers deserving of all the scorn the public can muster and there is absolutely, positively no way they would be able to prove that they weren’t cheaters.

Heck, Sammy Sosa is guilty in the eyes of many for his "no speaka da English" routine in front of the government committee, a corked bat and a trio of 60 HR seasons even though nobody has linked him to any dealers, never flunked a test and didn't show up in the Mitchell Report but is guilty as charged regardless.

As Colonel Nick Jessup said: ‘We can’t handle the truth’; or more pointedly, we cannot be trusted with it because we have been conditioned by the media to be completely irrational on the subject and our own inherent pettiness and jealousy toward those “spoiled, pampered, overpaid ballplayers” require that we take these self-entitled brats down a notch whenever possible since we’re too lazy to engage in the hard task of self-improvement and so are content to merely tear down others so we can feel better about ourselves.

It’s sad--but it is true.

Best Regards

John

Collective stupidity...

2009-02-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

I heard she’s also angry at Alex Rodriguez’s admitting to using steroids.

Can’t worry too much about the children now can we?

That, my friends, in a nutshell is why I get so ticked off at the media and people in general for dumping on A-Rod and Barry Bonds as this evil scourge that needs to be eradicated with extreme prejudice. Yeah, I’m not keen on players using steroids; my biggest beef is with the hypocrisy and revisionist history that is going on. Bud Selig along with his harem of whores in the media are trying to portray themselves as the heroes of this saga--Selig, the courageous warrior-commissioner bent on eliminating evil from the sport and the press as the ever vigilant watchdogs looking out for the public wellbeing quick to put the malefactors in the stocks of public opinion where they can receive their deserved scorn.

Nails on a chalkboard.

You’d think after so much time, John Q. Public would clue in and resume thinking for themselves rather than taking the attitude of ‘if it’s in the paper it must be true.’ While almost all would deny they hold such a mindset, their actions reveal that they still take what they read pretty much as the gospel truth--especially if it makes them feel better about themselves; trouble is, what makes them feel better is dragging people above them down to their level.

However, it’s only the ones the media anoint as the reapers of scorn that get nailed. Miguel Tejada--despite an MVP and being an All Star will not receive the flak of Rodriguez, Bonds, and Clemens because he hasn’t been the subject of press scrutiny and never signed an obscene contract but he’s no different than Barry Lamar, Roger or Alex.

Nobody is suggesting that Tejada is a menace that society needs protection from as my favourite SF Chronicle commenter opined with his “Bonds should get prison time, at least for that nasty personality. Society needs protected from big headed liars.” They have never been conditioned to hate Tejada.

As I discussed with a reader of my SMSN column this week: steroids were (and are--if you think the game still isn’t awash with them then you’re an idiot) an institutional failure in which blame rests upon commissioner, management, union, players and media.

I'm doing my level best to keep the focus on the larger issue.

The public has long railed (at the media's behest) about the "pampered, greedy overpaid players" and the Helen Lovejoy's come out in droves to "protect the children" when in reality they could do a lot more in that regard by looking in a mirror once in awhile.

Go into a classroom and chances are good nowadays that one in every two/three girls will experience sexual abuse during their childhood--that ain't A-Rod or Barry responsible for that; adults and parents expose their children to second hand smoke (see Ms. Williamson above), drug, alcohol and sexual abuse on a level that is truly staggering. As mentioned in the (SMSN) article, the world is being wrecked by people who get a tiny fraction of the vitriol being given steroid using ballplayers but the media has us convinced that "cheating ballplayers" are what is truly harming “the children.”

Why do people focus on A-Rod/juiced ballplayers over more important issues? Its either they’re jealous or superficial idiots obsessed with the celebrity culture.

I, for one, am sick and tired of reading about how ballplayers are this great evil that everyone rails against deluding themselves into thinking they’re being noble and “protecting the children.” They do that because it’s a lot easier than focusing on the larger problems (oftentimes the ones staring back at them in the bathroom mirror) and effecting change--something they do not wish to do--it’s easier to blame A-Rod for corrupting the children than their crappy parenting.

If you smoke in front of your children--shut up about A-Rod.
If you’ve driven your car after taking a drink with your children in the car--shut up about A-Rod.
If you’ve cheated on your taxes to save a few bucks and you have children--shut up about A-Rod.
If you’ve produced children and do not look after them physically, mentally, emotionally--shut up about A-Rod.

See my point? These will do far more damage to the children than players using steroids. The trillions being spent cleaning up the mess made by the truly greedy (that will be pocketed by many of these very ones) rather than schools, healthcare, social services, adequate nutrition and the like will do more damage to the children in the next year than every ballplayer that has ever stuck a syringe full of steroids into his butt (or popped a greenie) combined for the next 100 years.

As I’ll be dealing with next week on SMSN, since 1990, over $6 billion in tax dollars (unadjusted for inflation--for example: the $150 million for the building of U.S. Cellular Field is in 1991 dollars--not 2009) has been used in construction costs alone for ballparks and this excludes the value of the land given away, infrastructure, low interest loans (where the government makes up the difference), tax free bonds (the government forgoes the revenue on the bonds) and a myriad of other tax breaks that go along with such scams. It excludes any renovations made, maintenance required and a myriad of other costs associated with such boondoggles.

Adjust those dollars for inflation and you’re literally looking at tens of billions of dollars.

How many services that directly affect the children--such as education, teaching jobs and support staff, public safety, school programs (including nutrition, counselling and extra-curricular activities), healthcare, public parks and recreation programs, libraries--could’ve been funded with that amount of jack? Heck, Czar Bud’s almost $18 million salary is literally being subsidized indirectly by “the children” he’s allegedly concerned about protecting by wagging his finger at A-Rod! He does that because it’s easier to do than take a pay cut--he wants to protect the children from steroids and little else. Well, c’mon--how many kids are going to be harmed by steroid using ballplayers as opposed to a lack of funds to look after their needs?

Yeah, to me steroids are bad but the blame is being distributed unevenly and unfairly insofar as baseball is concerned and it’s negative effect on “the children” and the world at large is waaaaaaaaaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the list of things that can harm them yet folks act like it’s John Wayne Gacy being cloned on the scale of Star Wars Episode II.

Yet folks still think I “support” steroid users because I point these things out.

(sigh)

Best Regards

John

The eve of destruction...

2009-02-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

My head hurts:

Robbie Alomar allegedly has AIDS.
Miguel Tejada pleads guilty to lying to Congress.
Adam Dunn signs a two year/$20 million deal with the Nats.
Bobby Abreu signs a one year/$5 million deal with the Halos.
Manny claims he was provoked into shoving Red Sox travelling secretary Jack McCormick to the ground.
Jose Canseco wants to help MLB to cope with the steroid problem.
Darryl Strawberry discusses the lurid conduct of his time with the Mets.
Keith Hernandez says that the era and Alex Rodriguez’s totals are tainted by his steroid use.
Wayne Huizenga repents of his dismantling of the 1997 Florida Marlins.
Brian Giles counter sues his girlfriend claiming he was the victim of abuse.

All of this has crossed my desk today--10 items. I may go into more detail on some of these topics in the near future but for right now we’ll go with the whole knee jerk reaction to these revelations (a good choice of words since it feels like the Apocalypse is nigh):

Robbie Alomar allegedly has AIDS

I feel bad for the former Blue Jays All Star second sacker (and hopefully first ballot Hall of Famer) and wish him nothing but the very best. I don’t know what this is all about save that it’s seriously messed up.

Miguel Tejada pleads guilty to lying to Congress

Nobody is going to give a rip about this--he doesn’t make enough money and isn’t a good enough player to become a pariah. Public crucifixions are for those that the media have told us we should despise.

Bobby Abreu signs a one year/$5 million deal with the Halos

A major bargain--the Toronto Blue Jays should be ashamed they wouldn’t beat this--as of right now, they’re the only team in MLB to not have signed a major league free agent. Had the simply non tendered Jose Bautista, Jason Frasor, Brian Tallet, Shawn Camp and ignored the reclamation projects they could’ve topped this easily. This is the sort of thing that destroys a fan’s confidence in the team for which he roots. Why should the customer care when it’s clear that the team is disinterested in improving the product?

Adam Dunn signs a two year/$20 million deal with the Nats

Another bargain--nobody likes baseball there including the front office.

Manny claims he was provoked into shoving Red Sox travelling secretary Jack McCormick to the ground

I’m really sure an employee that disrespects the meal tickets of a major league team would hold onto his job very long. If McCormick was everything Ramirez claims he was, he would’ve been fired long ago. A truly pathetic episode and it gives teams another excuse to just say no to signing him.

Jose Canseco wants to help MLB to cope with the steroid problem

You can’t make this stuff up! It’s a real shame Jeffrey Dahmer is dead--he would’ve been a heck of a counsellor for folks with eating disorders.

Darryl Strawberry discusses the lurid conduct of his time with the Mets

Professional ballplayers partying and skirt chasing? Who knew? I thought they were into Bible study and working with the homeless.

Keith Hernandez says that the era and Alex Rodriguez’s totals are tainted by his steroid use

Hernandez stated: “I was 191 pounds my rookie year, if I had ingested steroids, I would have been close to 230 pounds. Now how much better would that have made me, 230 pounds without any body fat? And how many more home runs would I have hit? I hit 164 home runs . I probably would have hit over 250. I drove in 1,100 runs. I probably would have drove in 1,400. And I think that, along with 11 Gold Gloves, I’d be in the Hall of Fame.”

Had you not snorted so much cocaine you might have made the Hall of Fame as well. At least A-Rod was trying to improve and not destroy his talent and chances of winning ballgames. Bloody hypocrite--somebody should rip him a secondary sphincter for such idiocy.

Wayne Huizenga repents of his dismantling of the 1997 Florida Marlins

Amazingly, he still clings to the lie that he lost $34 million when he simply diverted team revenue to his other businesses--I’ll leave the rest to Doug Pappas (RIP) “...economist Andrew Zimbalist reviewed the Florida Marlins’ claim to have lost $34 million in their World Championship season of 1997. Zimbalist found that Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga, who also owned Pro Player Stadium through a different entity, attributed about $38 million of luxury suite, club seat, parking, concessions, advertising, and naming-rights revenues to the stadium rather than the team. This finagling made a profitable venture appear to be hemorrhaging money, and was used to justify Huizenga’s gutting of the team and subsequent demands for a new taxpayer-funded park.” --Baseball Prospectus

We miss you Doug--Wayne, not so much; don’t worry though, your Marlins are still safe in the hands of like-minded slime balls.

Brian Giles counter sues his girlfriend claiming he was the victim of abuse

But everybody is mad at Barry and Alex with people wanting to see them in jail. One of my favourite comments (for its sheer mindless rabidity) was from a SF Chronicle reader that opined “Bonds should get prison time, at least for that nasty personality. Society needs protected from big headed liars.” Yup, I remember telling my daughters when they were small to never take candy from strangers, never accept rides from somebody that wasn’t a family member, to avoid people selling drugs and big headed liars since they were the most dangerous menaces out there.

Ever see an episode of COPS when they were tracking big headed liars? Ever see a big headed liar on America’s Most Wanted but society needs protection from this scourge like this nitwit needs protection from natural selection.

Finally, I received an e-mail that made my day; either this guy was doing bong hits or doing the best bit of Stengelese that I have ever read. I don’t want to embarrass the guy in case it’s the former but here is it in all its unedited glory…

Reporters love to hate!!!

Baseball has been after Barry Bonds for breaking Babe Ruths record. That's all! If Mark Maguire had broken the record you and the rest of baseball would be ok with it. But when Bonds broke it both home run records and everyone has something to say about it. If Bagwell of the astros broke it you would have nothing to say. Although he quickly retired quietly and noone has anything to say. Now you are all willing to turn in and distroy all your players that you would of accepted, if they broke the record!! But Bonds broke the record and to stop him you are willing to turn in ig. Roger Clements, Mark "juice" Maguire and the rest of white baseball. The south does not seem like it is the same but from baseballs' point of view " Nothing has changed "

Just remember nobody said Maguire was on juice when he set the record!!! But the minute Bonds went after it!!! Their was a problem right!!

He should know his place from the view of white baseball!!!

Get over it

You’re not supposed to understand it--you’re supposed to enjoy it.

I have decided I don‘t get enough hate mail…

He did it for you (SMSN Canada) More on the A-Rod saga--my boss decided to add some fuel to the fire with the title and intro to it (I can’t take credit) and promised I’d pass along the best of the flames to him. He’s a sick man--it’s why he’s so much gosh darned fun to work for.

A slap at liberty (Hardball Times) The real story behind the A-Rod saga--at least the one about which we should really be upset if we have half a brain and a decent sense of self preservation.

Best Regards

John

My 'roid rage...

2009-02-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

For all the Betty Bowers in the media and general public clamouring for Alex Rodriguez to come clean I have one question: If he does tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth--will you believe him?

Here is what I mean--the only thing we know at this point is that in the 2003 survey testing, A-Rod’s sample came up dirty. He has been tested since then including the Olympic style regimen used for the World Baseball Classic and has come up clean each time.

What does this mean insofar as Rodriguez’s usage goes? Well, there are a number of scenarios that are possible:

1) He experimented during his time with the Rangers and was caught and wizened up realizing that it wasn’t worth the potential cost.
2) It was a false positive and he never used.
3) He started using in high school and discontinued doing so once testing with penalties came about.
4) After seeing the results other players were getting in the late 1990’s thought it might be a good idea to see what they could do for him seeing as he was coming into free agency after the 2000 season.
5) He started using after he hit .204/.241/.204 and .232/.264/.408 in his cups of coffee in 1994-95 and was scared that he couldn’t cut it and started juicing until testing with penalties came out.
6) He used only briefly, he felt awful and discontinued--this occurred about the time the survey testing was done.
7) He’s used his entire professional career and switched to undetectable designer steroids after he tested dirty in 2003 and remains a user to this very day.

Now--while there are other possible scenarios--let’s assume one of the above is the complete, unvarnished truth and A-Rod comes forward with it.

Will we believe him if it’s anything other than No. 7 on the above list?

Of course not.

The prevailing public opinion (regarding the elite player) generally is once you’ve been busted--and you’re not a beloved player (read: good to the press and well liked by the fourth estate)--it means you’ve been a hard core user from the get-go and continue to be one. To confess to anything less means you’re lying--in the public’s mind there is only one kind of steroid user: the out and out, ongoing, filthy greedy cheat that is only out for number one. You eat Winstrol and eggs for breakfast, grilled Deca Durabolin sandwiches for lunch and testosterone-bone steak for supper washed down with a Clear cocktail and peaches and Cream for dessert.

Guns 'n' boozers?

Barry Bonds has probably passed as many MLB-mandated steroid tests as Rodriguez but were you to ask the average fan, they would tell you that he’s probably still on it. Jason Giambi was a noted good guy before BALCO, has never flunked a test and has never been under serious suspicion since--however, when I saw this recent picture of Giambi, well...

However, the media loves him, he issued a mea culpa commensurate to his popularity level with the press to satisfy them and has generally been forgiven by the public simply because the fourth estate says that it's O.K. to cheer for the penitent slugger.

Rafael Palmeiro was busted in his final season, Roger Clemens hasn’t pitched since he was mentioned in the Mitchell Report, Mark McGwire was never tested but there isn’t a soul alive that believes any of them had a brief flirtation with steroids. Heck, Sammy Sosa has never been formally linked by anyone to using anabolic substances but his blocky physique and trio of 60 HR seasons have him convicted as a hard core user in the minds of many.

Sadly, even if Alex Rodriguez were to fully disclose his usage chances are he wouldn’t be believed because it doesn’t line up with what many want to believe. He is in the same boat with Barry Bonds--people want to think the very worst about them since it makes them feel better about themselves. As we discussed below, 252 turned Rodriguez from a saint to a sinner almost overnight and he went from everything that is right and good about the sport to symbolizing everything that is wrong with it.

There will be no redemption for Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez. He fell from grace on January 26, 2001 when he did what everyone else would do if somebody offered them a quarter billion dollars. Since we will never have an opportunity to lack that kind of jack, we don’t anyone else to have it either, we want them to say “Heck no, that’s too much money--let the billionaire keep his money so the fans who will boo my ass off once my skills decline can feel better about their miserable little lives.”

It‘s O.K. for the little guy to want as much money as his skills are worth in his world but it’s not O.K. for baseball players to do so because the media tells us that the truly great players would play for free so some of the richest men in the world can keep their money.

Give me a break.

The glee in the media over this is stomach churning and believe me, there are a lot of petty folks having absolute orgasms over this; they want their pound of flesh and will only believe the truth if it agrees with what they’ve already made up their minds that it is--even though there is only one failed test from six years ago to go on. Sadly, all too many people in the press and the general public will accept nothing less than a confession of a professional lifetime of usage as the “truth.”

I’m sorry, but we, as a species, suck.

Best Regards

John

The number of the beast…

2009-02-08T08:19:00.000-08:00

If MLB did indeed collude against Barry Lamar Bonds then it’s hard not to think that it has received karmic payback.

Bud Selig has been desperately trying to rewrite history; attempting to paint himself--not as the commissioner than allowed steroids to become entrenched in the sport--but as the man that saved the game from it. In the minds of the public, ridding baseball of Barry Bonds was to purge MLB of its anabolic menace.

Indeed, as Craig Calcaterra pointed out so eloquently in his chapter in the Hardball Times Annual, the Mitchell Report was designed to serve as the demarcation point of the “steroid era” and the happy fiction that the game was drug free could now proceed. All that was needed was a few more Alex Rodriguez quality seasons and 762 would fall to a clean player and all would be well with the world.

They all lived happily ever after as the saying goes.

Well, Bonds is gone and even had he played in 2008--unless he enjoyed a season for the ages--chances are good he’d be gainfully unemployed by now however A-Rod has a lot of years left in him; Selig’s sentence has just been extended and his true legacy will live on.

As the Yankee third baseman continues his march toward history, every ball that clears the fence will be another painful reminder of all he failed to do in his lust for profits.

Probably the most disturbing question I have regarding this particular aspect of this saga is this: was Selig aware that Rodriguez flunked that particular test?

If he was cognizant of it, then it has to be asked why he allowed Rodriguez to be touted as the heir to the home run crown? Granted, he could hardly blab the news that A-Rod’s test came up dirty but it does imply that he hoped that the result would never become public knowledge in which case he was knowingly promoting one “fraud” as king over another.

Of course, there would be money to be made off Rodriguez’s chase and that’s all that matters--it’s the same reason that Rafael Palmeiro was allowed to notch his 3000 hit before the stanozolol hit the fan…first cash the checks then let the truth come out.

How typically Selig.

Anyway, the feces based unstable weather system has already begun in the media regarding A-Rod with the usual hysterical, ill informed bleating that characterizes these things. A tip of the cap certainly needs to be made in the direction of Jay Mariotti who mangled the truth in his haste to unleash the venom:

he led the American League with 47 home runs and a .600 slugging percentage and was named Most Valuable Player, setting him up for a blockbuster $252-million contract with the New York Yankees.

Uh no, he received that contract from the Rangers--they later traded him to the Yankees; A-Rod later opted out of that contract and inked a new deal with the Bronx Bombers for 10 years/$275 million.

That, my friends, is the main reason for the vitriol that will be spilling out in the coming months from both the media and the fans.

It’s not about steroids, or cheating, or the home run crown--this is part of Rodriguez’s ongoing penance for the number of the beast circa the 21 century: 252.

He still has not been forgiven for failing to turn down Tom Hicks now infamous quarter billion dollar offer of January 2001. Granted, he does have to shoulder a bit of the blame himself in that he double-talked himself into a corner with such statements as:

“I've always said to everybody that Seattle is my first choice” and “But if you tell me, am I willing to take `X' amount less and win a championship, absolutely. I would defer money, I would take a lot less money. Trust me, there's no one that wants a ring in a worse way than I do.”

Of course we know he went to Texas coming off a last place finish. In his defense, the Rangers brain trust showed A-Rod the talent coming up through the pipeline, which Rodriguez said played a large factor in his decision. However when he requested a trade from the Rangers he stated: “I would have never gone to Texas if they had told me, ‘Alex, it's going to be you and 24 kids.’ Never. For no amount of money.”

However while he was with Texas, Rodriguez commented about his free agency tour “I wanted to be a Met. I've always wanted to be a Met, I've been a Met fan since I was a kid. And I would've played there for less money and less years and they know that.” The Mets were obviously interested in A-Rod as well, so why didn’t this deal come off?

He capped it all off by saying “it wasn’t about the money” only to turn around and say that it was for Esquire Magazine:

"He [Mike Lupica] kills me on national TV ... On The Sports Reporters. I would like to ask that guy, What would you do if you had this guarantee? He's barkin', 'You wanna win? Seattle gave you a winner.' So what? I made a business decision. An economic decision. It was simple." (bolding and italics mine)

Toss in the fact that all of this was engineered by one that is considered as big a baseball villain as Bonds--Scott Boras--and Rodriguez became a marked man and 252 was his scarlet letter--everything that has happened since that has caused the media to dump on him can be traced back to “the contract.”

252 gave way to 275 but make no mistake, Alex Rodriguez is still paying for accepting the money and the revelations about his positive steroid test is just another manifestation if it. Had he stayed in Seattle, or even gone to an organization that didn’t finish dead last the year before and left a little money on the table (let’s face it; the prevailing wisdom--thanks to Scott Boras‘ priming the pump of popular opinion--was that he’d get at least ten years $200 million when he became a free agent) in order to do so and while there’d be some weeping and gnashing of teeth regarding it, it would be nothing like what we’re in for in the coming months.

It may well have been the costliest contract (for a player) ever signed.

Best Regards

John

Before you begin to froth...

2009-02-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

There’s one guy we need to hear from in all this…

Scott Boras.

His agency does far more than represent professional athletes--he is also involved in the minutiae of his clients’ careers. He provides every service imaginable for his stable including psychological counselling. There are doctors, trainers everything required for building up a player to max out whatever talents exist in a given player’s body.

For all his faults, the man provides an incredibly high level of service for the men he represents. He often boasts about how involved his agency is in the professional lives of the players under the umbrella of Borascorp.

Some of the high profile names that have been part of all this in recent years include A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez, Eric Gagne, Kevin Brown, Rick Ankiel, Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds.

All have been linked to the sport’s steroid era either through BALCO, positive tests, the Mitchell Report and Jose Canseco’s literary masterpiece “Green Eggs and Deca” (AKA “Juiced”).

For a man so involved in the physical and psychological upkeep of his stable could he possibly have been so ignorant or so blinded to what the players were taking?

It’s not only Boras--this isn’t the first time the action of agents have affected players in this regard. The Hendricks Bros that represented both Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte apparently didn’t pass along key correspondence from George Mitchell regarding the evidence that was uncovered that linked them to either steroids or HGH; both Any Pettitte and Roger Clemens testified regarding the multiple letters sent by Mitchell that (1) Pettitte was informed of one over the phone and (2) Clemens was completely unaware that Mitchell had tried to get in touch with him.

Of note…

One agent, who told me that he has instructed his staff to refer to Boras as “he who shall not be named,” then requested that his own name not be identified, for fear of recrimination from the union. “Gene Orza is a figurehead,” he said, referring to the chief operating officer of the Players Association. “Scott Boras is the union.”

While the comment can easily be taken as an over the top bit of snark it does illustrate that the working relationship between agents and the union is a lot cozier under Don Fehr than it was under Marvin Miller.

It does beg the question about how much various agencies knew about their clients’ steroid use. Do not forget that Kirk Radomski said he dealt with about 300 major league players not including those that networked from the original (300)--these players have agents as well.

Since Rodriguez is currently the hot topic one has to wonder when you consider that he and Boras were once BFF on the scale of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie before “The Simple ~~Minds~~ Life” and the battle of Opt-ober created a chasm on the scale of Hilton and Boras’s respective I.Q. between the parties in question.

During their bromance is there any way that the Shrivelled-Rod (well, this one is inevitable, I’d best get it started before the NY Post) wouldn’t let Boras know that particular “FYI”?

Sadly, while I know Bob Costas is blaming the naughty, naughty MLBPA for all this it’s good to bear in mind who their partners were if they decided to tackle steroid use in the game--that’s right, the owners that kept their of anonymous testing about as well as the other pledges they make--so it’s not difficult to understand that their reticence wasn’t strictly motivated by avarice but it does beg the question how much influence the agents do have considering that both parties have an interest in pushing up the salary bar by any means possible.

As I wrote back on THT after the Mitchell Report came out:

Here is where Fehr and Orza blew it—what they failed to understand (or simply ignored) is that by trying to keep an environment where players could use performance-enhancing drugs without concern of sanction, they were doing ownership a huge favor. Steroid-fueled performance was incredibly profitable and ownership didn’t want the gravy train to end. Players were risking their health by taking substances that possibly came from dubious sources and manufactured in unsanitary and unhygienic conditions.

Management didn’t care; player turnover is a fact of life in baseball. Somebody is always available to take the spot of somebody not performing should someone become injured due to steroid usage. They found an indirect ally in the MLBPA; higher profits translated into higher salaries and the interests of the salary bar were being served. Citing privacy issues, Fehr and Orza long resisted drug testing. This suited ownership just fine and it finally took government action to get both to deal with the issue in a substantive way.

Who was protecting the players now? Both sides were allowing them to take risks with their health to play in the major leagues.

Fehr and Orza’s ideologies created a multi-tiered playing field between players who used and those who did not, but also between players who could afford substances that were more sophisticated and manufactured in sanitary conditions and those who had to look to the black market to get what they needed to get or retain a job in the big leagues. Beyond this, players on the 40-man but not on the 25-man roster weren’t subject to testing while players not on the 40-man roster were subjected to regular testing.

What it boiled down to was that an aspiring major leaguer had to choose to use cheap anabolic substances created under dubious conditions or allowing players who were doing precisely that to get an available job. A lot of players gained MLBPA membership because they were willing to use these drugs to reach the major leagues. Further, two players on the same Double-A/Triple-A team competing for a 25-man roster slot may have been in a rigged contest if one was on the 40-man roster (and not subjected to testing) and the other was not.

A union that potentially creates/allows a situation where ingesting potentially toxic substances is a prerequisite to employment has lost its way. The MLBPA should be the one insuring that its membership have a healthy, safe, fair environment to work in. Pathetically, it appears that management is the one trying to create that safe workplace but is meeting resistance by the organization that should be protecting the workers it represents.

…it may be time to include agents in the group of those that exploit players. Let’s face it, they too profited handsomely from the steroid era and it seems that they were hand-in-hand with the owners and the union in seeing the money ball roll on even if it endangered player safety.

My point?

In the immediate future you’re going to be reading a lot of small, petty, jealous and vindictive editorials regarding the cheating and greedy A-Rod just as you have been about Barry Bonds; never, ever lose sight of the fact that this was an institutional failure--everyone was complicit in the steroid era. It’s just there has always been a lot of resentment toward the “spoiled, pampered, greedy, overpaid player” and we’re about to face a new round of it in the media and the comments section of the articles written.

Everybody profited big time from this: Bud Selig makes almost $18 million a year, Don Fehr is among the wealthiest union leaders in the country, player agents like Scott Boras looked the other way and reaped obscene commissions off the players that injected themselves with these substances and there is no escaping it--the “steroid boom” caused revenues to spike and this in turn showered money on all parties.

The dollar will never fall as low as the means people will stoop to acquire it. Greed won the day and it wasn’t just the players that were responsible--they had a lot of accomplices.

Never forget that.

It’s all about me!!

Field of Schemes (SMSN Sports)

THT EXCLUSIVE : Feds raid dog house on spinster’s property (For you snarkologists this was inspired by something funny my boss at SMSN did--you might wish to read this to understand that this isn’t about BLB for me--it’s about Selig; it’s just a pity that you cannot see through your own media inspired hatred of Bonds to discern that.)

Best Regards

John

Pop goes the world…

2009-02-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Well, if Sports Illustrated is to be believed, Alex Rodriguez has been busted for anabolic steroid usage.

I’m not surprised myself if it’s true and if the contents of the article (to be dealt with shortly) are to be believed, it certainly sounds like the home run record will remain shrouded in controversy.

My lack of shock has nothing to do with any perceived moral failings on the part of the Yankee third sacker--it’s just that steroids were a major, major part of the sport for a lot longer than folks care to admit. We already know that people will do a lot of god-awful purulent things for even a small pittance yet alone when there are hundreds of millions potentially at stake.

Our global economic crisis was largely caused by people’s lust for wealth without any consideration or conscience toward others or the greater good. Major league baseball is an entity that devours its young without pity and the competition for roster spots is often a no hold barred event where the darker side of natural selection takes place.

I tend to be more surprised when somebody is completely above reproach or suspicion rather than otherwise--the culture of getting any kind of edge in the sport is as old as the game itself and it’s largely a myth that MLB reflects the best in America; to the contrary, it reflects America as it truly is: winning isn’t everything it’s the only thing, nobody remembers who finished second, if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’ and as Albert Einstein once said “Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”

“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”--Heywood Broun

For what it’s worth, the alleged reactions of A-Rod and MLBPA No. 2 Gene Orza are what I find especially damning:

"You'll have to talk to the union ... I'm not saying anything."--Rodriguez

When asked about A-Rod being tipped off about an upcoming drug test, Orza stated: "I'm not interested in discussing this information with you" and Don Fehr isn’t returning calls. We recall that John Rocker stated that the Rangers and the MLBPA made Rodriguez part of a meeting discussing the safest way to use steroids and that Jose Canseco also made noises about him being a juicer.

Again, the sport’s dirty secret is gradually becoming known as we’re seeing that it was (and is) as likely as prevalent as some players initially stated before being pressured to recant.

For a little perspective, how many recall the Yankee third sacker’s interview with Katie Couric a couple of years ago:

Couric: "For the record, have you ever used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance-enhancing substance?"

Rodriguez: "No."

Couric: "You never felt like, 'This guy's doing it, maybe I should look into this, too? He's getting better numbers, playing better ball?'"

Rodriguez: "I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level. So, no."

Rodriguez said the following about the Mitchell investigation: "Katie, you're putting me in a tough spot. I mean, these are guys that I play with. They're my teammates. If anything comes of this, I will be extremely disappointed. And it will be a huge black eye on the game of baseball." (bolding and italics mine)

Ouch.

Obviously (and fortunately) Couric isn’t a grand jury but if S.I.’s report is to be believed but what is the difference between Barry Bonds and Rodriguez? I mean both are inner circle Hall of Fame level talents, both used anabolic steroids and lied about it.

I think it’s time we simply acknowledge that a chunk of the game’s history involved the use of both amphetamines and anabolic steroids. Our indignation at a small minority of players singled out by the media (that were every bit as complicit in the scandal as anyone) is misplaced. This was something that permeated the entire sport from the commissioner on down and should be viewed as such--to slag on a few convenient scapegoats says more about us than it does about them.

Probably the saddest aspect of all this is that a bigger scandal will go largely unremarked upon: The player's union only agreed to the 2003 tests--the source of Rodriguez’s sample--in the first place on the condition that the results remain strictly anonymous. If the players and their union ever needed another reason to never, ever trust anything management ever promises--well, here it is in bold relief. Also, the fact those very results were seized and are now being made public is a scandalous abuse of government power (if you don’t think this effects you--guess again; ever give a urine or blood sample for insurance purposes or as part of your job? Well, if you thought the results would be kept private you could be in for a nasty lesson) and this is far more worrisome than some ballplayer trying to get an edge in his profession.

(Thanks to my fellow Primates at Baseball Think Factory for their diligence and digging.)

Best Regards

John

Burn the witch!

2009-02-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

Well … not really, I just really thought it would make a cool title for a post.

Regardless, when I saw this article on Yahoo: Boras: Don’t play chicken with Manny I had to laugh. First Manny (or Boras…I’ll just call them Boramirez) turn down--or even really acknowledge--the two years/$45 million offer from the Dodgers and Boras later states (when teams could bid on free agents) that they’re willing to entertain “serious offers” for Ramirez which never materialize, then Boramirez turns down arbitration, then arrives the one year $25 million offer and now we get this announcement from Boras.

Uh huh.

What I thought interesting was Boras’ half statement of a “healthy market” without really defining the parameters of what constitutes a “healthy market.” I mean, if healthy means that there are a number of clubs willing to better what the Dodgers have put on the table then (1) why even bother with LA yet alone (2) issue warnings about not playing chicken. I’m sure the market for Ramirez is healthy but is it healthy at the levels Boramirez are seeking?

I would imagine that if Ramirez publicly stated that he was willing to sign a four year/$16 million contract that Boras’ switchboard would short out. I’m equally certain that if he said he was looking for a Pat Burrell type contract (2 years/$16 million) the same thing would happen.

What is not to be forgotten is that “healthy market” has Bobby Abreu and Adam Dunn still on the shelves--in Abreu a team gets better defense and base running, solid offense and a good citizen at a lot less per year than what Ramirez has turned down. In Adam Dunn they receive a consistent power bat (I mean, 40 HR on the nose in each of the last five seasons and six straight of 40-plus--how cool is that?), fewer headaches and a guy not yet 30 years old that can likely be had at half of what they’re seeking on an annual basis for Manny Space Cadet.

Sure, it was really convenient that San Francisco Giants player personnel director Bobby Evans stated “You can’t deny interest if there’s an opportunity to bring him to the Giants. … We’re going to monitor the market on him. It doesn’t seem to be going down, although he did turn down this offer” but let’s face it: there is an opportunity to bring him to the Giants--offer more than the Dodgers.

However, that’s not an option they seem keen on exploring; heck, any team has the same opportunity but nobody has stepped up to the levels Boramirez are demanding. The Yankees say they’re out (I say they’re not), the Mets likewise, the Red Sox (HA!) definitely not so who does that leave with $25 million lying around and willing to blow it on one player when you can probably get some combination of Dunn, Abreu and Orlando Hudson for the same amount with change left over?

Either Boras has a hole card (the Yankees) or he’s desperately trying to get Ned Colletti to bid against himself and let’s face it--is there any other team out there that would love to see the Dodgers do just that more than the Giants?

I think it’s safe to say that the duo blew this one--Ramirez’s age, demands and disgraceful exit from Boston did more damage than they initially thought; Ramirez said that ‘gas was up and so was he’ however he went into the tank while in Beantown never considering that the economy and the free agent market might follow right along.

A bit of poetic justice to be sure.

The thing is, surely Boras is not so dense to realize that a one year contract at $25 million followed by a season of Manny being magnificent proceeded by a return to the free agent auction with a healthier economy and fewer slugging corner OF/DH types on the market isn’t the worst scenario ever devised and let’s face it 2/45 is better than the 2/40 they left on the table in Boston (with no guarantees that the Red Sox would even pick up the options in this economic environment). Therefore, the question has to be asked:

Who is the driving force behind the debacle: Ramirez or Boras?

Is Ramirez’s pride wounded and he refuses to play for anything less than what he feels he is worth or is it Boras trying to save face hoping that something will transpire a la Derek Lowe that will bring another bidder or two into the picture?

Or is it a team effort: Beavis and Butthead Do America?

I guess time will tell.

This much is certain--this is one of those rare times I’ve stooped to indulge in a little schadenfreude; I was willing to do so after Scott Boras announced A-Rod’s opt out during the World Series but when Rodriguez manned up and did what he wished to do then the future Hall of Famer earned back a lot of respect from me and I was happy for him (I'm sure he sleeps better at night knowing that). Well, there are two people in MLB that bring nasty visceral feelings to the surface in me by the very mention of their names: Bud Selig and Scott Boras. I feel strongly (and have written articles) that Ramirez’s exit from Boston was choreographed to get Ramirez into free agency in what appeared to be a very lucrative market.

The fact that it could have affected a pennant race made it that much more purulent to me and quite frankly I am happy that it appears to be backfiring. Nobody will suffer from this--both men will remain fabulously wealthy and gainfully employed but it’s nice to see that when you screw with the game then sometimes the game will screw with you.

Baseball is a century-plus old institution enjoyed by billions over the decades and few have had the privilege of playing at the highest levels--it is not a playground and piggybank for small minded and greedy men whose time in the game is short.

It’s good that we be reminded of that on occasion.

Best Regards

John

Collusion vs. Deep Throat...

2009-02-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Probably the biggest hang up folks have in wrapping their minds around a possible collusion of Barry Bonds is the very logical, honest truism of Deep Throat’s “follow the money.” I mean, baseball owners and their $18 million a year commissioner are as money-grubbing as it gets and signing superstar players and winning games, pennant races and playoff series translates into the happy music made by cash registers (or the melodious beep of debit card machines or the seductive swish of the credit card) ergo it raises the question--why would teams jeopardize the revenue that could be potentially generated by signing ol’ Barry L. Zebonds by participating in a collusive blacklisting of Mr. Sunshine and Happiness?

What has to be borne in mind is that money rarely takes a linear path. Bud Selig is a politician and as one he accumulates a lot of political capital through a number of means by getting clubs indebted to him. For example: The Toronto Blue Jays received equalization payments when the Canadian dollar was low and doubtlessly are hoping for more--because of that money they’re going to do Selig’s bidding. In the last decade (or so), he’s gone to bat for a large number of franchises to line up public money for stadium construction, he got the Red Sox and Marlins into his back pocket by engineering the sales of those teams (to the second-highest bidder in the case of the Sawx) and providing loans to the Fish (that became outright cash grants), choosing the group to get the Expos in D.C. (plus the $600+ million stadium there).

Bud is the great dispenser of goodies and because of this clubs could find that it is more financially prudent to stay on the good side of Selig for years to come rather than enjoy the short term benefits of employing you know who. You just never know whether the commissioner’s office will approve a trade that involves a large shift of cash from one team to the other to cover a Boras-inspired impulse purchase contract of which a club is desperately trying to divest itself … sometimes it’s wise to hedge your best and strongly consider any “informal recommendations” made by the man in charge.

For all his faults, Selig is very good at working a room and building up a reserve of goodwill and favour among the cartel. He has accumulated a lot of capital among the clubs (only a small fraction ever becomes public knowledge) and he has the chits to call in--having discretionary control over the Central Fund doesn’t hurt either.

As to Selig, never forget that Bonds is a symbol and think of precisely what he symbolizes to Selig: his failure to address steroids, his friend losing the home run record (I mean, did anyone think in 2001--even after his 73 HR season when he was at 567 HR that he'd hang around long enough to hit almost 200 more? I did my first out and out “players are unquestionably on steroids” column that year and I didn’t think that BLB was a threat to Hank Aaron) having probably never imagined that his lack of diligence would cost “The Hammer” the crown. He wishes to be remembered as the commissioner that rid the sport of steroids and not the one that allowed it to become entrenched--Bonds was a living breathing indictment of Selig’s failure and true legacy and watching his reaction after HR 755 cleared the fence spoke volumes.

It’s personal for Selig and he had accumulated enough clout, political capital and chits owed to indulge his feelings. On a more practical level it also allows him to posture for Congress and how would it look if the poster boy for steroids in baseball was allowed to put the record further out of reach? If the feds became even more involved in the issue it might bring a level of testing and penalties to the sport that would (1) out the ineffectiveness of the current program--Selig’s pride and joy and (2) those severe penalties and more comprehensive testing costing the sport ticket-selling level players and the revenues they provide.

He needs the sport to look steroid-free (as possible) while it was still a hot news item and focus of government attention--for both for his legacy and maintaining the profitable status quo, Bonds is a convenient scapegoat: remove the symbol and the “scourge” follows in the public and media’s eye. He knows the fourth estate will fall in step because of its dislike of ol’ Pumpkinhead and the public image is--get rid of Bonds and you’ve rid the sport of steroids. Just check out the feedback section on articles dealing with Bonds and various message boards--Bonds “is” steroids and as such needed to be exorcised…the media provided necessary “cover fire” for any collusion to take place assuring one and all that “common sense” was simply prevailing as it had in the 1980’s collusion.

This is what makes me think Don Fehr does having something that will prove Bonds was blacklisted--he’s going against popular opinion. Does anybody really miss Bonds among the players, clubs and large segments of the fan base? I don’t miss him, my take on all this is far, far more anti-Selig (just check how many times I have blasted him) than pro-Bonds and I think the whole collusion issue is simply another manifestation of Selig’s attempts to rewrite the history of the steroid era in his favour and if I accomplish nothing else in my writing career I will do my level best to make sure folks know that it was an institutional failure and not just a handful of ‘greedy, self absorbed players with a sense of entitlement.’

That is why I have written so much about it--it has little to do with Bonds for myself personally.

Getting back to Fehr, Bonds pulled out of the union’s licensing program and make no mistake--both he and Gene Orza were livid at him for so doing. Unless he has something significant he wouldn’t even bother with the issue since he’s not on a major league roster (unlike John Rocker back in the day)--Fehr is a cautious man and never moves unless he’s sure the ground is solid under his feet. He has told players in the past that wanted to file a grievance that they had no case (such as Dan Quisenberry‘s release from the Royals back in the 1980‘s) and if Barry Lamar didn’t have a case, I can’t envision a scenario where he’d bother wasting any time on a player nobody really misses and flipped off the MLBPA in effect saying “Who needs you? I’m Barry Bonds and you’re not!”

Another misconception about any possible collusive activity is that all 30 clubs have to be involved. According to the collective bargaining agreement it is simply not the case that all teams need to be involved for a charge of collusion…four or five would be enough; Selig wouldn’t need to worry about every club--the Giants already let him go, not every team had a hole in LF/DH, other teams are known for not making big signings (Royals, Twins, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and before C.C. Sabathia--the Brewers) so Selig only would have to worry about a minority of clubs yet enough for a collusion charge to be filed.

It’s not crazy for them to understand where their financial best interests lie--one year of Bonds vs. staying on Selig’s good side…especially when they know how strong his feelings are on the matter.

An easy choice--especially if you’re not a club that prints money.

Bottom line, a team can both agree to a conspiracy regarding a player while simultaneously “following the money.”

More Bond-age

People still hate Barry Bonds (SMSN Sports)

Plus, I’ve done a satirical article on the whole Bonds saga for THT that will hopefully run this week. My favourite part is always when the Bonds-haters respond to the article on Ball Hype with a comment that states: “It‘s not funny--it‘s just not” or “You tried to be funny and you failed” or something to that effect. For the folks that truly despise BLB and believe unconditionally everything that is written about him--well, I find it irresistible not to tweak them a little; I mean, they take it so seriously. One person wrote on Ball-Hype that my collusion articles drove him from even visiting THT--think about it, remove me from the equation and THT is a tremendous resource with a cadre of talented writers but this person deprives himself (or claims to) of all that because he despises Bonds so much that he cannot bear to visit a site where there might be something that doesn’t involve venom, vitriol and blanket condemnation of the man.

He’s never met Bonds and likely never will but he allows that hatred to literally impact his personal life; that my friends is why you should never believe everything the media says about anyone or anything--they will make you act crazy.

As to his “ban” of THT--who is he hurting? Me? I’m completely unrepentant and if anything it stiffens my resolve to cover unpopular subjects and provide counterpoint to what is written in the MSM. Bonds? Chances are good that he’d simply laugh at the very notion--the only person affected or harmed is himself.

There is a lesson to be learned from that.

Best Regards

John

Booty and the Beest...

2009-01-31T13:48:00.000-08:00

Before I proceed, I’d like to give the usual tip o’ the cap to the always vigilant warriors against sobriety at Drunk Jays Fans for this (what would I do without you guys?)--they catch a lot of heat from testiculacking folks that should be rolled in the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices for always levelling their “critiques” (I call it synaptic flatulence)--complete with all the panache of a middle school bathroom stall--anonymously but DJF are relentless diggers for Blue Jays information and for that I am grateful.

But I digress … right off the bat too!

Anyway, to state the obvious, I wanted to chime in on what Paul Beeston said on Prime Time Sports a few days back because I’m not sure whether I am more disappointed or mystified at the seemingly obvious double talk that is so out of character for him. I’m just gonna rip off the section used by The Drunks for this since they pretty much pegged that this was the key part of the show. I’m gonna do this “Fire Joe Morgan” style--not so much in tone as in format (I mean--this is Beeston, not Bud Selig or Scott Boras…folks that you know will lie like a teenager caught coming home well past curfew):

I think that's a good question and I think that question was addressed in a couple different ways at the State of the Franchise. In fact, Cito was there too, Steve, so, I mean, it was an opportunity for everybody to ask that question, and it went from why don't we go after Manny Ramirez to why don't we go after Bobby Abreu, and I think that if you kind of examine it, those are fair questions. At the present time, though, given the economy, given whether or not we lose AJ Burnett and the salaries and everything, we're actually trying to run this on a business basis at the present time, so we don't have just those dollars just because we didn't sign AJ Burnett.

Did you have the money to sign Burnett--yes or no? Was the whole thing a ruse to placate the fan base since Ricciardi knew all along he was going to the Yankees? If you were serious about re-signing them then the money is there and since he didn’t return then the money must still be available.

The fan doesn't really care about that-- and rightly so-- they want to see a winning program. We think that we'd like to see a winning program also, but, we really want to make sure we do it right, and for the players that you're talking about, I'm not 100% certain that they're still in the area that we want to move at this point in time. Will they be next week? Maybe. Will the be at the first of February? Maybe. There's still a number of players out there, and JP continues to talk and we'll assess it as we go by, but I don't want to lead anyone to think that we're going to be out there with those big names, but you know, who knows? Somebody might drop in our lap.

Here is where I’d like a little less vagueness--define “drop in our lap.” I mean, non tender a few guys such as Jose Bautista, Jason Frasor and Brian Tallet and there’s enough money (or close to it) to have nabbed Pat Burrell or Jason Giambi for what the Rays and A’s paid respectively and we haven’t even discussed the money that was there to sign Burnett that no longer exists. What are the parameters for this--the player comes into Ricciardi’s office on his knees and pleads for a job at the minimum? It really sounds like a non committal commitment since there are no guidelines for what qualifies as ‘dropping into their lap.’

I don't think necessarily it's in terms of profitability, it's in the basis that you wouldn't want to lose money, and you could say that there was a number of books, and there was somebody who said he could take a $6 million profit and turn it into a $2 million loss and get every accountant in the country to agree with it...

Let’s not forget third party transactions--Rogers Communication can shift a lot of money around and make it look like the Blue Jays are money losers while other sectors are major gainers--I’d like to know how much of their third quarter profit came from the team--remember, they own 100 percent of the revenue streams from the Rogers Centre and have no rent or mortgage payments to speak of but they can write off a mess of amortization (that counts as a loss on the books) on the facility. Also bear in mind that it’s standard practice in MLB for teams that own their primary broadcast outlet to massively underpay for the rights to televise the games so as to hide profitability from both the government and the players union.

I'm not sure I could do that anymore, but I think, Stephen (Brunt), the answer to your question is, we're not in a position right now where you could look at just the television, you could look at the stadium, what we're trying to do is run it on one set of books and trying to run it on a profitable basis, and put ourselves in position where we can actually grow the revenue so that we can be a big player with the big teams.

Can we see the books to confirm that this is what is happening? Didn’t think so--I call B.S. squared on this item since if they ran it on one set of books hiding revenue and profit is that much more difficult and would be against pretty much SOP (standard operation procedure) for the major league cartel.

And as I work this out, that's doable. Is it doable next year? Not in this economy, not without winning-- you have to have both of them. Why are the Yankees and the Red Sox able to go after the big players? Essentially they win. And so, you know, they not only get huge get, they get huge television dollars too. So, they add it all together and so when the big players come forward, they can go after them.

Isn’t this circular reasoning? You can't win without big players but you cannot get big players unless you win.

I don't think that if you look at the Yankees you can say that they've overspent. They've overspent maybe in terms of number of years of some of the players that they've signed-- like Sabathia, Teixeira and AJ-- but they certainly haven't overspent from the point of view of going into 2009, because I think their salaries are down. I'd like to see that our team got to that position where we'd be able to contend with those types of clubs, going after the premium free agents. We may have to take a little step back this year to balance the books and then take it forward from there.

As we discussed back on the 28th that it is far more economical to spend less on better players this offseason than wait for the next to potentially pay more for inferior talent--I mean, next year’s free agent class reeks like Alex Rodriguez’s undershorts after a big playoff at bat. Again, we see a reference to balancing the books but no hard data is provided and I doubt any will materialize. Don’t forget, Beeston said barely moments before that “we don't have just those dollars just because we didn't sign AJ Burnett.”

Let's face it, that’s serious voodoo economics right there. Toss in the suspicious timing of their little “State of the Jays” meeting with seasons tix holders and the media and it’s hard not to get the impression that the franchise is hiding something.

I’m a big believer in the “follow the money” route to understanding such things and there has to be some reason the club feels it’s in their best interests to blow off 2009, have the most depressing offseason of any non-Maple Leafs Toronto franchise--there are two ways to make money in MLB: investment and welfare. Investment involves risk--welfare is free money so I’m guessing rather than taking a financial risk by investing in the free agent market, build a winner and increase revenues that way, the club has opted to kiss Bud Selig’s posterior, play good organizational soldiers and not spend this hot stove league and hope the commissioner’s office has a nice equalization cheque to offset the low Canadian dollar.

From Mel Queen to welfare queens…here are your 2009 Toronto Blue Jays!

Finally…

The Hardball Times 2009 Season Preview will be going on sale (click the link for details) and as usual I’m covering the Toronto Blue Jays with my usual whiny, snivelling Jann Arden-esque “let’s slit our wrists together” tone. I like money so buy the darned thing so I can take writing lessons and make this experience less torturous for all of us.

Best Regards

John

Connections…

2009-01-29T14:27:00.000-08:00

So, has Joe Torre dropped the “cl” from class act?

I mean, to hear the media tell it for the last decade plus Torre was the Yoda of baseball management; sage, thoughtful, the Force of baseball wisdom flowed through the placid wizened baseball lifer: his own counsel he would keep when it came to deciding who would be trained in the way of champions.

It was accepted a gospel truth—Torre existed on a plane above mere mortals.

Now it’s getting crowded under the bus of the book he wrote along with Tom Verducci and the lustrous legend of Torre has developed considerable tarnish—are we to now believe that the former Yanki Master isn’t everything the media portrayed him as being?

Who knew?

Have we learned anything from this—anything at all?

Anyone?

Anyone at all?

The lesson is this: the way the media explains people within baseball may not accurately represent the truth. If they love them (or if they’re indulged by them—See Pete Rose, Steve Garvey, Kirby Puckett) they’ll create a portrait that even their intimates wouldn’t recognize.

If they don’t like you—well, let’s just say their names wouldn’t look out of place alongside Osama, Adolf, Genghis, Judas or Kathie Lee.

I think you know where I am going with this—again, I am not saying Barry Lamar Bonds is a saint and chances are good that he’s downright nasty at times but he is not the worst person ever to lace up spikes in the major leagues and probably isn’t among the top 100 (minimum 5000 AB).

However, the media’s portrayal of the man cause many people’s blood pressure to rise at the very mention of the name.

Bottom line—if you believe everything the press writes about individuals … well, no offense, but you’re really not all that bright. I’m sorry, you’re just not.

Anyway, Feds raid home of former slugger Bonds' trainer's mother-in-law; now the Feds have had since 2003 to connect the dots from various sources to nail Bonds and now they’re doing this? These are not the actions of people that feel they have a rock solid case to take to court to obtain a conviction—this is simple desperation.

The thing is, even what the fourth estate has presented about the case has been inaccurate; they have said that he confessed to using the “Cream” and the “Clear” when what was said was that he used certain substances that were later explained to him as being these things—a significant difference. Also, his “whatever dude” comment was not addressed to the prosecutors or any member of the grand jury but rather was what he testified he said to Greg Anderson.

In short, the truth has not been disseminated to the public in many respects and a lot of important details have not been given nearly the column space as the things that make Bonds look as guilty as possible.

I think the government knows it has done a poor job and is grasping at straws. It’s the price of pursuing vendettas—the media painted a picture of Bonds that caused Jeff Novitzky (and possibly others) to loath him to such an extent that they began to believe they were doing God’s work to bring him down and there would be enough slime laying around that it’d be easy to accomplish precisely that.

I think they may have overlooked one plausible scenario: I’m going to don my tinfoil hat and write something that I have wondered about; many folks have marveled at how loyal his personal trainer--Greg Anderson--is to Bonds and have speculated that BLB must have promised to look after him if he kept his mouth shut.

However, there are a couple of things wrong with this scenario—both men are extraordinarily self-centered. Bonds never shared significant amounts of his enormous wealth with his friend or anyone close to him. He has crafted prenuptial agreements, offended Kimberly Bell with the size of her “payoff” and has never shown any inclination toward spending large amounts of money for people’s silence.

These ones had “the goods” on Bonds as well but he was never motivated to look after such ones for life in exchange for their silence. I cannot see Bonds making an exception for Anderson. Bonds often treated Anderson like it was his duty to do what Bonds wanted when he wanted it done—gratitude isn’t something for which BLB is noted.

Anderson knows Bonds well and I cannot see why he would think that his friend would feel it is his responsibility to do anything that would inconvenience the moody slugger—it has always been a one-way street.

I think Anderson wasn’t protecting Bonds—he was protecting himself.

One of the things Bonds wanted from BALCO was pain relief and Bonds said that he believed the “Cream” would help with the pain.

Before I proceed further let’s be clear on this point: I think Bonds took anabolic steroids at some point, Anderson knew he took steroids and Victor Conte was aware as well.

I am beginning to strongly suspect that Bonds did not know what was in the “Cream” and “Clear” and he was being used as a guinea pig by Conte and Anderson. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bonds was cycling steroids and HGH at the same time he was using the “Cream” and “Clear.” This might be the reason for Anderson’s silence—he doesn’t want to face the consequences of it becoming known that he was using his friend as a test subject for Conte’s experiments.

So, while Bonds was using steroids during his career and even when he was associated with BALCO, he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know what was in the “Cream” and “Clear.” It would explain Anderson’s dogged silence as well as the government’s inability to build a perjury case based on his grand jury testimony.

Some quotes from Bonds' testimony:

"I was just baffled like, you know, should have been doing this a long time ago, you know, drawing blood, find out what you're lacking and stuff, you know, keep your energy up if you're this or that."

And everyone tries to give me everything. You got companies that provide us with more junk to try than anything. And you know that as well. I was fatigued, tired, just needed recovery, you know. And this guy says: "Try his cream, try this cream." And Greg came to the ballpark and he said, you know: "This will help you recover," and he rubbed some cream on my arm, like some lotion type stuff, and like, gave me some flax seed old, that's what he called it, called it some flax seed oil, man. It's like: "Whatever, dude."

"And I was, like--you know, to me it didn't even work. You know, me, I'm 39 years old. I'm dealing with pain. All I want is pain relief, you know?"

"And I had a bunch of massage people trying to keep me going and, you know, a lot of training and stuff like that. And I was just getting fatigued and not recovering ... I never asked Greg. When he said it was flax seed oil, I just said: "Whatever." It was in the ballpark ... You know, in front of everybody. I mean, all the reporters, my teammates. I mean, they all saw it. I didn't hide it. I didn't hide--I didn't hide anything."

In response to a question about whether Anderson inquired about any effects, Bonds replied: "It's not doing crap. I'm still in pain. I'm still feeling the pain."

"I just told Greg I was having problems recovering. I-the pain--I have bad arthritis ... "I just need to recover," you know, that's all, the pain -- "Just take the pain away."

This is a common theme in his testimony: the “Cream” was often rubbed on areas Bonds felt pain and he complained that he wasn’t getting relief. Again, I’m not saying Bonds wasn’t using steroids at this point in his career but it might be time to consider that insofar as the substances in question are concerned that he didn’t know that he was taking steroids and he was being used by Anderson and Conte as a guinea pig.

If this is indeed the case, then the government is in tough to prove perjury and there’s no way Anderson will talk because it is not Barry Lamar Bonds he is protecting—it’s himself. Right now, the government is trying this in the press and the media is all to happy to oblige but it is entirely possible that they made a key tactical error in assuming that the steroids Bonds knew he was taking were not the substances in question but that Bonds genuinely felt that the “Cream” and “Clear” were items to help him deal with pain and alleviating fatigue common to athletes his age.

Time will tell—but this much is (ahem) clear—the government is scrambling at this point despite having almost six years to prove their case.

That is telling of itself.

Best Regards

John

Torre Torre Torre...

2009-01-28T12:59:00.000-08:00

Everybody is abuzz with the whole Joe Torre revelations regarding his tenure with the Yankees. Leaving aside the ethics of the whole “what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse” issue--it does raise some interesting questions.

The Yankee team of 1996-2001 had a lot less pure talent on it than the 2002-2008 edition that has featured a bevy of future Hall of Famers, superstars, former superstars, perceived superstars and players paid as if they were superstars in their quest to again win the World Series: Alex Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Randy Johnson, Jeff Weaver, Johnny Damon, Kevin Brown, Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, Cliff Floyd, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Tom Gordon, Al Leiter, Robin Ventura, Raul Mondesi, John Olerud, Kenny Lofton, Javier Vazquez, Bobby Abreu, Pudge Rodriguez plus guys like Roger Clemens, David Wells, Andy Pettitte and Tino Martinez were brought back in hopes of recapturing aura and mystique.

Despite that galaxy of stars they couldn’t duplicate what guys like Scott Brosius, Paul O Neill, Bernie Williams, David Cone, Tim Raines, Chuck Knoblauch, Jeff Nelson, Orlando Hernandez, Jim Leyritz and earlier incarnations of Wells, Martinez and Pettitte accomplished.

Obviously, talent is a prerequisite for a team to contend--there is no substitute for that. I remember someone stating the biggest difference between the clubs pre and post Opening Day 2002 was that the more recent incarnations of the Bronx Bombers had all the best players whereas the four time World Champions had all the right players.

Put another way, you can put together two high performance engines--one can be cobbled together with all the biggest, baddest state-of-the-art engine parts simply pieced together so that the engine runs; the other assembled with lesser (but still quality) parts but put together with the thought of the pieces interacting smoothly and working with a minimum of friction and maximum output and chances are good that the better assembled engine can beat the one that has all the bells and whistles but simply tossed together.

As Torre allegedly states: "The team wasn't tough enough ... A lot of those players are more concerned about what it looks like as opposed to getting dirty and just getting it done. Those other teams, they were ferocious."

In short, one team was greater than the sum of its parts--the other was whole was lesser than the sum of its parts.

Is this the “chemistry,” the “intangibles” that are often spoken of? The thought that talent--raw talent, while irreplaceable isn’t enough when putting a team together but having the talent mesh harmoniously and work as a unit with common purpose is important as well?

My biggest memory of the Yankee team of 1996-2001 is that if you opened the door a crack, they’d kick it down; any mistake by the opposition would be capitalized upon with extreme prejudice--there was a unity of purpose…beat the other team by any means necessary. However, there has been no shortage of drama on the 2002-08 clubs; each year, whether in the trade or free agent market the brightest, shiniest bauble available would be brought into the mix with little thought about how they would play with the other kids. The sheer overwhelming amount of talent on the roster was sufficient to win out over 162 games but when facing talented teams in the more randomized post season tournament, they didn’t have the common focus of the previous assemblage and were repeatedly beaten by very capable teams that functioned as a unit.

Instead of having a club that was fairly anonymous (compared to more recent rosters) and the assumption was that somebody would step up with the big hit, the big play when needed, the team now had specific players that were expected to do so; the 1996-2001 Yankees expected the team to succeed whereas the 2002-08 Bombers expected Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson etc. to succeed in their behalf.

One group was a team, the other an assembly of extremely talented players.

As Torre said: "Never forget there is a heartbeat in this game"--obviously the “heartbeat” wouldn’t be enough to turn the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates into world beaters but maybe it’s the difference when the talent level is within range of several teams.

Something to keep in mind at any rate.

To change gears…

Scott Boras is reporting that Manny Ramirez will sign by spring training and that several teams have expressed interest in his client.

This isn’t news, what Boras is saying is (1) Ramirez will sign by spring training, (2) a team or two has called wondering if their contract demands have come down (3) Boras is compelled to let this (that clubs have been in contact) be known publicly in hopes of getting the Dodgers to sweeten their offer by getting them thinking that other clubs are suddenly willing to break the bank for Ramirez so that (4) Manny will have a slightly better deal than the one in front of them when he signs with the Dodgers before spring training.

Put a jacket and tie on a hamster, place hamster on a wheel and watch him run in place and get absolutely nowhere but looking quite determined nevertheless and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what is behind Boras’ latest bit of “news.”

Finally…

In a bit of fun news, Jack Marshall--who wrote The baseball ethicist: Why nobody signed Barry Bonds that inspired my reply The baseball ethicist…a reply has agreed to do a post mortem after the decision in the MLBPA’s collusion case against MLB regarding Bonds with me.

Despite our differing opinions on the subject, we do agree that Bud Selig is far worse than Bonds and neither of us is a real fan of BLB. I’ve promised to recant if it wasn’t collusion and it will be my forum to do that--if they are guilty (of collusion)…well, any sarcasm and invective will be directed at Bud and the ownership cartel. I’m not a told-you-so kind of guy and Jack’s opinion is a good faith one and let’s face it--the media has portrayed Bonds as everything that is evil in this world so it’s not unreasonable to think that the media circus and perception of his melon-ness would keep a number of teams at a distance.

Best Regards

John

Penny wise and found foolish...

2009-01-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

O.K. the Toronto Blue Jays are punting on 2009 to see what the kids can do and hope 2010 is the year the club goes for the gold.

Now, I’m thinking (or whatever the processes that go on inside my cranium are classified as) that if the team needs to add a piece or two that it will be done in the next offseason.

Fine (a woman’s four letter F-word it should be noted and can inspire male incontinence if uttered correctly).

Here’s where I get confused--now the organization is worried about costs this year but not so much in 2010. Yet, when you compare/contrast this year’s class with next year’s--well the free agent class of aught-one-oh is as decidedly underwhelming as the Blue Jays' offense last spring. What Rogers Communication/J.P. Ricciardi/Paul Beeston/voices in somebody’s head is saying is that it’s far better, far smarter, far more economical to spend more on lesser talent during the next offseason than grab a bargain priced superior talent or two that can be used in 2010 right now.

Put another way, if the Jays need a DH heading in 2010, it is far better to possibly drop $14 million per year on a Jim Thome, Aubrey Huff or a Hank Blalock next year than spending $16 million per annum on a Manny Ramirez. If it’s pitching you need, it’s better to pay $15 million/year on Rich Harden 12 months from now than say…$9-12 million on a Ben Sheets right away.

Yes, they save money this year by not spending but next year pay more for lesser talent and this is considered a sound financial strategy? It’s like passing on Boxing Day Sales for the fridge you desperately need opting to wait until prices are higher to make your big purchase.

Again, it’s not that the money isn’t there--Rogers Communication has enjoyed tremendous profits despite the economic downturn--it’s that there has been a conscious decision not to spend it at this time. Even though it would be prudent to take advantage of the bargains to “stock the shelves” as it were (especially with higher quality merchandise), they’re choosing to wait until next year when lower quality inventory will be available at higher prices.

Now, I’m no financial whiz (look at what I do for a living) but this strikes me as not smart--especially when the money is there.

I’m pretty sure these folks didn’t get to where they are today by being dumb so something else must be at play here.

It’s what we discussed at the Hardball Times last week--the hazards of being Selig loyalists.

There is a financial motive to be sure--the choice made by teams on a regular basis; do you make money by investment and increasing revenue or welfare? As was discussed in the THT article--Selig loyalists view players simply as an expense no different from paper clips, photocopiers, computers and pens…something that comes off the bottom line.

This is the approach made by franchises like the Royals, Pirates, Reds, and the Brewers under Selig’s screwardship.

Their track records speak for themselves.

There are other teams that look at players as investments--individual stars put “asses in the seats” as George Steinbrenner once famously opined and of course quality player that help teams win ball games … well, let’s just say winning, pennant races and October baseball have been known to enhance a franchise’s revenues.

However, the advantage of welfare is that you don’t have to work for it.

The thing is, Rogers Communication has done a lot of good things for the Blue Jays--they’ve refurbished the Rogers Centre, they brought in some decent talent, held on to some home grown stars and put a better product on the field.

Of course, part of this was simple self preservation--the team had lost the public’s imagination and trust (such as it was) and that’s not the ideal outlet to advertise your wares. If you want to plug your product, eyes are kind of necessary and if there’s no interest in the team…

Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a particularly brilliant baseball writer) to connect the dots.

Yet, while the team has shown promise, it has needed some additional investment to take it from potential contender to the genuine article and this is where the organization seems to have lost its stomach.

The question is why?

I’m guessing that part of the Selig loyalty is based on the commissioner’s office giving the Blue Jays equalization payments the last time the dollar was so low and hopes for more now that the depressed Loonie (not me, but the resemblance is undeniable) has fallen so far.

Selig has preached restraint to both the GM’s and brought Paul Volcker in to do likewise for the general partners and other baseball execs and the Blue Jays are determined to be good organizational soldiers in hopes of more free money (another hallmark of Selig-loyalist … I really need to come up with a name for such ones: Seligists? Buddists? Bud and the Selugs?) even though it might cost them a competitive team.

The Toronto Blue Jays have enough issues in trying to reach the post season: playing in the AL East, drawing free agents into what is to most players a foreign country, the Canadian dollar etc. without looking for additional hurdles to overcome.

Just sayin’.

Buddy-ball … screw it.

Best Regards

John

Rotation odds and ends...

2009-01-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

Well, that wraps up the Bonds’ rants for the time being. I must admit, I’m tempted to do a regular feature on the “worst of the web” as regards Bonds’ sentiments. I mean, I’m not real fond of the guy myself but I try to at least be rational about it as opposed to saying that man’s personality and head size deserves jail time.

But I digress.

I’ve been falling behind in my Blue Jays’ optimism posts--especially as respects the starting rotation. I haven’t covered all the potential candidates and thought I’d pick up two or three more in this post. So, without further ado…


 ERA   IP     H   HR  BB  K
4.00  162.0  192  12  12 120

How would that look at the end of the rotation?

Well, that’s Scott Richmond’s totals from 2008 extrapolated over 30 starts; now I’m inclined to think that it’s a bit optimistic but it does demonstrate how well he pitched in his short stay with the big club. He’ll get some extra work in the WBC and should be ready to go come Opening Day. He’s a long shot for the starting staff but he has shown in limited duty that he knows how to get major league hitters out--keep your eye on him.

Casey Janssen missed all of 2008 after surgery on his right shoulder after an outstanding season of setup work the season before; he’ll be 28 which is helpful in that he’s young enough to recover arm strength more quickly than he would be were he in his 30’s. He also doesn’t have that many professional innings. He was a starter in the minors, logging about a full season’s worth of innings pitched over three seasons (241.2). His peripherals are promising … well, let’s just look at them as if it were a complete campaign:


 W L   ERA   IP    H   BB  K
16 5  2.94  241.2 215  38 211

That’s a nice year--fewer hits than innings pitched, a solid K/9 of 7.86 and an absolutely stingy BB/9 of 1.42. The big question is arm strength; his career high in IP is 148.2 and that was in 2005 plus he’s coming off a major injury. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of different guys shuffled through the 4-5 spots to spread around the workload. I can’t see Janssen as a candidate to throw 160 innings next season. If he can throw strikes and keep the ball down he should be able to give league average pitching to the rotation.

In a statement that’s almost hilarious--we’re going to look at J.P. Ricciardi’s big offseason acquisition: Matt Clement. Like Brad Wilkerson before him, Ricciardi wanted to have Clement’ baby 3-4 years ago but left empty wombed and frustrated with proboscis interruptus. Well, he now has Clement in his ardent embrace having broken up with Wilkerson.

After missing all of 2007, he spent last season rehabbing in the Cardinals’ system and probably the thing that jumps out is the 13 BB/10 K in his 16.2 IP with the Memphis Redbirds in the PCL. Generally, the last thing to return to a pitcher following surgery is his command so it could be that it was just part of the recovery phase but his control has never been his strong point with a career BB/9 of 4.14. For Clement to be useful, he’ll need to throw a lot of innings but that lack of control will result in high pitch counts and difficulty in getting out of the fifth inning.

It’s doubtful he’ll be the strikeout pitcher of old but if he still has his ability to throw ground balls he could pitch to contact and let the Blue Jays infield defense work for him. I can’t see him or Maroth being with the big club come Opening Day. Clement was better than league average from 2002-04 and below it otherwise (although his 99 ERA+ in 191 IP in 2005 would thrill the Jays if he could duplicate it in aught-9). It’ll be an interesting project at any rate. For other posts dealing with Toronto’s potential starting pitching…

Pitched twaddle
Anchor…away!
Today’s happy thoughts…
Welcome to 2000-whine

This week in me…

The wrong kind of loyalty in baseball (The Hardball Times)

What are the Blue Jays hiding? (SMSN Sports)

The Hall of Fame game (SMSN Sports…poorly formatted charts--I need a shot at the content management system one day)

Best Regards

John

Where angels fear to tread...

2009-01-24T12:01:00.000-08:00

Rant time!

I don’t get it--I just don’t.

Where’s utopia? Where is paradise?

I mean, there is a glut of righteous, upright, heck--downright holy people nowadays--you can’t swing a Bible without hitting a candidate for sainthood anymore judging by comments on various message boards and column feedback. Speaking of the good book, Jesus is reported to have said to a group of men that wanted to stone a woman caught at adultery: "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

Let me tell you something, that woman would be underneath a mountain of rubble when one considers comments made on articles about steroid use in baseball. I can just hear the *thud* *thump* *thud* *thud* *thump* *thud* *thump* *thump* sounds after the words “...at her” were finished. Some examples:

No, he is not like the rest of us. Most people would not break the law to achieve a higher salary or to achieve higher praise at their job. Stop writing articles like we should feel sorry for these players. We are talking about grown men that consciously made a decision to break the law and cheat for their own selfish reasons.

Welcome to earth--things are a little different than what you're used to so take some time to become acclimatized.

Poor McGwire. He's human. Boohoohoo. So am I. I never did drugs much less performance enhancing drugs. If I couldn't do with what I was given, I did without. So could he. He chose the low road. I have no sympathy for him.

Am I the only one that thinks that he has a selective memory? Ever buy a car? A house? Any large ticket item? Ever tell the salesperson that you can get the same item at a lower cost somewhere else when it wasn’t the case? Guess what chum--you sold out and took the low road for money--now tell me how you’re different than any juicing ballplayer?

Hypocrite.

If you don't want your reputation damaged, don't do stupid crap that could ruin your reputation. It's really not rocket science here.

Well, I've found my messiah--hopefully he will show us the way to truth, justice and purity.

He was a steroid freak and a cheat! For you to defend him is appalling!

Excuse me, I'd like to see your income tax returns for the last 20 years, your driving record and your school records--I'm sure that they will positively have an almost angelic glow.

No, these were regarding an article about Mark McGwire--not Barry Bonds. Here are some selected tidbits from a BLB column:

Look, this guys head swelled 3 hat sizes.....he was on the juice and he is a worthless human as well. Go to jail and out of our lives you fraud.

It's nice to know where we can go to determine the worth of a human being.

As good as Bonds could be, he raped the Giants clubhouse and his presence alone crippled in the Giants in terms of team chemistry.

San Francisco Giants: four playoff appearances in 15 years with Bonds, four appearances in the previous 38 season before BLB. The Pittsburgh Pirates went to the post season three straight times in their final three seasons with Barry Lamar and haven't returned since he left--but the chemistry is doubtlessly better.

bonds is a perfect example of a loser. he tried to cheat his way to success. but the problem all along was his steroid sized ego. he was never teammate material. he cheated on his wife and expected treatment no one else on the team got. a perfect recipe for divorce and never winning a world championship. get the hell out of the bay area, you have left a dark legacy!

Uh, yeah--four post season appearances and a new ballpark...that's quite a dark legacy. Just curious, what would you define as a good legacy?

Baroid Bonds is GUILTY of many things: 1) being an MLB tool like his doper father Bobby Bonds, 2) being a steroid addict 3) being a liar, 3) not ratting out Dusty Baker, Bud Selig and ESPN-Disney George J. Mitchell 4) telling Lance Williams to stuff it!

(sigh)

Sounds right on target. Pumpkin head Bonds reaps what he has sewn over the last 25 years. IMO the jury of public opinion is done with Mr. Bond's. He's guilty of being a FOOL.!!!

The jury of public opinion also resulted in a few thousand lynchings--what’s your point?

So, here’s the question: why is the world so badly messed up?

Holiness abounds, paragons of virtue are a dime a dozen--is it that it’s just a few bad apples wrecking the world for all the godly, upright folks that never bend, yet alone break the various rules society has set up? The IRS, Revenue Canada, and various police units must wonder where all the speeders and tax cheats are coming from. Why did Nancy Reagan need to begin her “Just Say No” campaign when most folks were saying no early, often and repeatedly?

“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”--Fyodor Dostoevsky

No duh eh? Mr. Dostoevsky died 128 years ago--nice to see we have made so much progress as a species.

The thing is, I’m not defending the users--it’s just that I find it so bloody frustrating that what was an institutional scandal that involved everybody in the sport: players, management, union, owners, commissioners and yes--media is being taken out on a few high profile players.

It’s being done by small, petty, jealous, vindictive people for the most part who--since they cannot elevate themselves through achievement--try to drag people down to their level so they can feel better about the miserable world they’ve created for themselves.

Similar comments and remarks were heard when players first started to unionize in the 1960’s, during the mass holdout of ’69, the strike of ’72, ’81, ’85 and ’94-95 as well as during the lockouts of 1976, 1990. They were heard during the cocaine scandal of the 1980’s, during collusion and they’re being heard again today. It’s always the “privileged, pampered, spoiled, overpaid players” and the latest issue becomes the latest reason for the chorus to begin anew.

Owners, team executives, media and others can be part of the same scandal but it will always be the players that will bear the brunt of the vitriol.

Look, I’m no saint and it wouldn’t be difficult for someone that is out to get me to dig up something I’d rather not have become public knowledge. Having said that, most folks that know a lot about me think I’m a decent person despite the mistakes of my past. Maybe it speaks poorly about the company I keep but the majority of people I come across on a daily basis I would not invite into my home and sadly, I have learned from hard experience that those you can truly trust are few in number and are only as honest as you are vigilant.

If people (myself included) worried more about honour, integrity and playing by the rules in our own lives than in MLB the world would be a much better place; however the world we non-major leaguers live in believes in “look out for number one,” “winning isn’t everything it’s the only thing,” “nobody remembers who finished second,” “the end justifies the means” etc. Folks cheat on their income tax, speed, lie on their résumés, cheat on exams, are less than forthright when buying or selling a car or a home as easy as they breathe, probably ingested something illegal at some point in their existence yet these same paragons of virtue feel that they’re fit to stand in judgment of those that did what they felt they needed to do to get ahead in their lives.

I’m not saying what the players did isn’t wrong--it is; I’m just stating that if we held ourselves to the standards we expect in others everyone would be better off and I doubt they’d want the same standard of enforcement of their misdeeds that they’re demanding for McGwire, Bonds et al--in fact they’d be quick to justify their actions and plead humanity and imperfection…

…and that imperfection often deceives us into believing that the jealousy we feel is in fact righteous indignation.

Rant finished.

Best Regards

John

I'll be in Scotland before ye...

2009-01-21T12:21:00.000-08:00

“Not only is there a divine--he has a twisted sense of humour!”--Rev Bem (Andromeda)

Plentiful is the advice about not dealing with certain types of people. For example: “Never fight with a pig; you’ll both get dirty and the pig likes it” and “Never argue with an idiot--he’ll drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience.”

So it goes.

The logic is simple--no matter what somebody does to you, to retaliate is to stoop to their level and such ones have the upper hand since they have gotten you onto their turf. A much older, quicker variation of this is simply to “turn the other cheek.” When you get right down to it, to respond in kind rarely makes you look like the better person and it is preferable to simply take the high road.

There is another saying about never betting your bladder against a brewery or argue with those who buy ink by the barrel. While the media loves to portray Barry Bonds as the Antichrist’s psychotic kid brother it’s good to bear in mind that the disrespect has most likely been mutual but only one side gets his story out. There is an old Hebrew proverb that states: “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.” Well, the media is first to present their case and it is the same media that controls the response of the one ‘coming forward and questioning him’ so it’s safe to say that Bonds would be in a no-win situation in getting his side of any confrontation out.

It’s the poor, persecuted beat writer that will always look like the victim of the evil arrogant ballplayer--it was the same shtick used against Ted Williams, Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson and others.

Now, let’s assume that everything was 100% Barry Bonds fault. Well, instead of taking the high road, certain folks decided they wanted payback--they would return every bit of nastiness they felt was inflicted on them by BLB.

Bud Selig was mad at him for breaking Hank Aaron’s record and serving as a permanent reminder of his choice to eschew integrity over profits and pretend steroids didn’t exist, Jeff Novitzky (or somebody in office) was offended by him due to how he is portrayed in the press, a large segment of the fan base wanted him taken down for the same reason (as well as the long standing jealous hatred of the “spoiled, pampered, overpaid ballplayer” we’ve been reading about since the 1869 Cincinnati Redlegs). The fourth estate convinced these ones that his disrespect for the media was by extension a disrespect toward them and they took up the torch of offense deciding that every slight Bonds gave the press was by extension a dissing of each and every fan as well.

Some examples:

“…the only thing that seems to bring him joy is his contempt for the vast majority of humans. He greets the world with a sneer ... Yet no great player has been more consistently unpleasant than Barry Bonds, and not only with professional snoops, but teammates, too.” -- (Don't put too much stock in Bonds' tactful concern)

“He smiled and laughed, exuding all the charm of a mobster posing for pictures with kids. This was Barry Bonds' good side, the one we supposedly never see. But the man who would be (home run) king has stopped snarling at the world ... He's laughing all right—at Bud Selig, Hank Aaron, the feds, the fans, you and me.”--(Nobody can stop Barry Bonds)

“It's why most people who know Bonds wouldn't spit on him even if he was on fire ... Nobody questions his talent. It's his failure as a human being that is at issue.”--(Bonds in the showcase game? It just doesn't add up)

So, now everybody was on board for the war against Bonds: the commissioner, the government, the media and the fans--all determined to repay every slight ever inflicted on them.

First Selig (I’m assuming) illegally blacklists Bonds--the media faithfully provide cover fire by cranking out editorials that he is too noxious to employ at any price even though this will be a major league first for a talent of this magnitude.

Call it “the common sense revolution.” The fans fill message boards on such articles largely with cries of support matching invective for invective with the writer.

Then the government apparently sets up a perjury trap by unilaterally changing the rules of those offering testimony for Bonds and even though the drug in question is not yet classified as a steroid or. outlawed, proceed as if it were even though they know better. The questions asked by a grand jury seem ambiguous at times all pointing to an attempt to trap him in his speech.

The media cries “felon” convicting him even before his trial (assuming the government still goes through with it), the fans cheer on their support praying for the day they’ll see him led off in handcuffs and demanding that any mention of him be expunged the sport. One commenter on an article on the San Francisco Chronicle site said:

Bonds should get prison time, at least for that nasty personality. Society needs protected from big headed liars.

That’s certainly fair and reasonable isn’t it?

Now, as things start to fall apart and the case against Bonds is reduced to the validity of the chain of custody of urine samples taken at BALCO the media is curiously silent--it may be that it never sees the light of day as Judge Susan Ilston has been very critical of the prosecution’s methods and approach to the case as well as the work of Novitzky:

Red flags have already been raised on Novitzky in the recent appellate decision. Three district judges and one appellate judge concluded that his conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. Two appellate judges disagreed.

In December 2004, Ilston quashed the subpoenas served on the labs doing the testing for Major League Baseball, ruling that the government’s conduct was unreasonable and constituted harassment.

“I think the government has displayed … a callous disregard for constitutional rights,” she said in open court. “I think it’s a seizure beyond what was authorized by the search warrant, therefore it violates the Fourth Amendment.”

The dissenting Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas noted that Novitzky appeared to have intentionally deceived the court, charging that the agent’s affidavit for a search warrant “did not disclose that a grand jury subpoena had been issued for the same material and that a motion to quash the subpoena was pending in the same district.”

The controversy surrounding the searches of the labs and offices that collected the specimens and performed MLB’s drug testing at the time – Comprehensive Drug Testing (CDT) and Quest Diagnostics – has the potential to become a precedent-setting case on the privacy of medical records and the limits of unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The recent appellate decision may receive a full hearing of 11 judges in the Ninth Circuit Court, and possibly find its way to the Supreme Court. With or without further appellate proceedings, Novitzky’s conduct is likely to hang over the Bonds perjury trial. (bolding and italics mine)

It’s entirely possible that Bonds skates.

Right now, the MLBPA claim to have evidence that MLB colluded against Bonds and let’s not forget two items: (1) Don Fehr is a cautious man and never makes a move unless he is absolutely sure of his ground. He hates to be embarrassed and is known for being very exacting when performing his due diligence and (2) Bonds withdrew from the MLBPA’s licensing plan which would not sit well with Fehr--Fehr is only human and likely is less than pleased with Bonds so the evidence must be pretty compelling for him to stick his neck out in this matter.

If collusion is established then they will owe damages to Bonds and they will be tripled.

Think about this: how embarrassing will it be if Bonds is found “not guilty,” MLB is found guilty of collusion and owes Bonds a big award, Novitzky is found guilty of violating the constitution and Bonds' rights after the media and fans have been crying “felon” and worse and when all is said and done the only penalties paid will be to Barry Lamar Bonds and those trying to get him were the law and rule breakers?

It all could have been avoided had they taken the high road and showed Bonds how to behave with class.

It also shows that Bonds is not the only villain in all this: MLB, Novitzky and the media will all be exposed as the fraud they claimed Bonds to be (although the press will likely fall back on the old rhetoric claiming Bonds “got away with it” while ignoring their own poor performance and lack of objectivity in all this and despite the arbitrator’s ruling, it wasn’t really collusion--nobody really wanted him--honest!).

Like Shylock in “Merchant of Venice” they wanted their pound of Bonds’ flesh and instead ended up on the receiving end of outrageous fortune.

I just hope some folks will come away from this realizing that Bonds may not be the nicest person in the world, but the people out to get him were no better. The bitterest pill for many to swallow is this: Barry Lamar Bonds wanted little to do with us feeling we were petty, spiteful, jealous and vindictive and guess what?

We proved him right.

As I said in an earlier post--there are no heroes here, just differing degrees of villainy. Maybe next time we’ll see the value of taking the high road.

Best Regards

John

No idiots need apply...

2009-01-21T10:37:00.001-08:00

See? It’s not such a bad system after all is it?

Ever since Messersmith/McNally paved the way for free agency in baseball, ownership has bemoaned the unfairness of the system that require they pay--as Jerry Reinsdorf once famously opined--‘What [the] dumbest competitor pays for talent.’ The solution to their woes was right in front of them from the get go however, the answer didn’t suit them for two reasons (1) they only understood monopolistic control and (2) they despised the man giving the resolution to the dilemma--one Charles Oscar “Charlie O” Finley. What was his advice?

“Make ’em all free agents.”

When Marvin Miller heard Finley suggest this back in 1976, he nearly soiled himself and prayed that one of the more respected owners (such as Walter O Malley) wouldn’t catch on. After all, flooding the market with free agents would cause players to compete for jobs rather than teams competing for players. If they had to vie for available jobs, players would have to be willing to play for less than comparable talent.

Well, we’re seeing a demonstration of that this season. Although a poor economy is partly to blame Tom Verducci points out that there are more free agents than available jobs:

This is how one general manager described the remnants of the market: about 70 major league free agents competing for about 50 remaining roster spots, who are seeking about $100 million in contracts, but with only $60 million available.

While any remaining starting pitchers should be O.K., position players and middle relievers will not be getting the dollars and years that they hoped and as Verducci points out, a lot may have to retire simply because their demands are too high and if they were offered arbitration (and are Type A or B free agents) will cost a draft pick.

The ones that declined arbitration may discover that it is the last mistake they’ll ever make in MLB.

Of course, Verducci also points out one guy in desperate need of a smack upside the head reporting:

One journeyman reliever, for instance, turned down a $2 million offer, saying he would retire before taking that kind of money.

I mean, turning down $2 million freakin’ dollars plus all the perks of a playing in the bigs for maybe 100 innings work at most and he feels insulted?

I’m sorry, but shouldn’t natural selection have weeded such stupidity out of the gene pool by now? Talk about a complete and utter lack of perspective--turning down that kind of jack to play in the big leagues; a truly fun job, a luxurious lifestyle and because he’s not getting what he feels he “deserves” he’s gonna take his glove and go home.

Enjoy retirement--I guarantee that this cretin will be asking someone to give him a good swift kick in the butt in a year or two--just ask Kenny Lofton what being insulted at a million dollar payday does for one’s career.

I’m still amazed that the strike of 1981 was over free agent compensation--clubs wanting more than the draft pick for losing free agents to act as a disincentive for signing free agent players. Now it has become a deterrent--whether it’s a function of the economic downturn or teams are starting to realize that developing boatloads of cheap talent is a far better way of putting together a winning ball club than throwing $50-100 million for someone past his prime whose skill set is being reduced to simply hitting.

Hey, defense and base running count too and teams are starting to realize that it takes more than walks and home runs to win--you still have to be able to get the other team out. Further, sharp defense makes your pitching that much better and gives you more mileage from your pitching staff since efficiently turning balls in play into outs means your starter will need fewer pitches to get out of innings. In turn, this allows your starter to throw more innings taking the stress off the bullpen and so it goes.

Between teams becoming smarter and the MLBPA losing its centre it now appears that the pendulum has again swung back to management’s favour. Player agents that realize this will serve their clients better by not automatically assuming that there will be a better offer forthcoming and sometimes get while the getting is good.

Best Regards

John

One kook's petard...

2009-01-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

… or star wrecked, the next degeneration.

Getting back to yesterday’s subject matter, one cannot help but marvel at how things that go around come around.

Here’s the thing, Barry Lamar Bonds has lived most of his baseball playing life as if rules were for everyone else. He set his own guidelines, did as he pleased regardless if he were breaking either the laws of the land or club rules on the teams for which he played.

His great skill and the money it generated provided a protective wall around him--nobody wants to barbecue the cash cow. He was pretty much untouchable and knew it and more importantly--acted like he knew it. He did as he pleased, treated others as he pleased, thumbed his nose at management, teammates, media, fans, the MLBPA, various agents he retained because gosh darn it--he is Barry Bonds and they’re not. It was Barry’s world and they were just living in it.

How ironic is it that the same approach is now being used to bring him down?

The normal rules for grand jury testimony was changed for Bonds, somebody has unilaterally decided that he needs to be taken down and the normal protocols for search and seizure and various other laws have been casually brushed aside because somebody dislikes Bonds as much as Bonds disliked many around him.

Just as Bonds would stop at nothing to get his way, now somebody is stopping at nothing to get him. The world revolved around Barry and now that world is again revolving around him but this time it isn’t for Barry’s aggrandizement--it’s for somebody else’s altogether. Barry being Barry is now Barry being buried. Nothing deterred him in making a name for himself--often at the expense of others--and now somebody is undeterred in making a name for themselves at Bonds’ expense.

In short--he’s getting a taste of his own medicine. Now he knows what its like to have the rules changed to his own detriment, to realize that those same rules are no longer a protection and the man that thought he was above the law has by now had the epiphany that the law offers little or no protection from those wishing to destroy him.

Granted, this (his legal status) could change due to the ineptitude of those trying to build a case against him but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s lost his career, his legacy, probably a great deal of money and those he wished to keep at a distance--lest his universe be disturbed--are more than happy to accommodate his wishes and he is no longer bothered by fans, clubhouse reporters or team management (of any club). He made it clear on repeated occasions that he doesn’t need anybody and now has few allies and many make it clear that they do not need him either.

Make no mistake--these people are stopping at nothing to isolate him even further making sure that instead of wearing orange and black his wardrobe will change to just plain orange. He will remain behind an iron gate but isn’t sure whether it’s one to which he has a key.

This is why--while I think collusion is wrong and feel what is happening with Bonds is likewise--I have little sympathy for the man. He has made his bed and now must lie in it. It’s not like the end result was unforeseen; history teaches us repeatedly that you should be nice to people on the way up because you will see them on the way down. It instructs us that the cocoon of protection people like Bonds enjoys lasts only as long as he has tangible value to those protecting him; it’s why it’s important to make allies while you still can. This lesson is ages old:

"There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' "'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' "'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly."--Luke 16:1-8

Like the man in the parable, Bonds knew that one day he would be out of a job except wouldn’t know precisely when (although his early-to-mid 40’s would be a good guess)--unlike the man in the parable, he didn’t use the opportunity to build bridges and cultivate those that one day could come to his aid. If collusion did indeed occur it was made easier because he had few (if any) allies in management and the silence from the players was deafening; while some made veiled statements that something might be fishy nobody came right out and said that what was happening was wrong and no one made noises about wanting his bat behind them in the lineup.

It went from “I’m Barry Bonds and you’re not” to “We’re major league ballplayers and you’re not.”

An old Hebrew proverb states “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind” and it appears that is all he has right now.

Getting back to the original point--whether it is Jeff Novitsky or someone higher up that’s after him, I cannot help but wonder if he/she/they realize that the actions they despise Barry Lamar Bonds for committing are the very things they are doing to bring him down.

If they succeed, they will be a hero to many and the irony will never dawn on them that two people acted the same way--they loved the one and despised the other and never took the time to find out why. The reason is because despite protestations to the contrary--they do believe everything they read and they let others think in their behalf.

However it ultimately ends up--nobody has covered themselves in glory in all this: fans, media, player, leagues, the government…nobody. There are no heroes here--only degrees of villainy.

Best Regards

John

The Mon Calamari philosopher...

2009-01-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

Another blow against the forces of goodness and virtue…

It would be interesting to fast forward a century into the future and see what kind of perspective there would be on the whole Barry Bonds saga.

The thing is, we go back to the whole BALCO situation, the grand jury, athletes being called to testify and the goal seems fairly clear--the purging of those manufacturing and distributing performance-enhancing substances to athletes.

Pretty straightforward.

Now, to nail these guys, you need folks to spill the beans on them and the only ones capable of doing that are the very athletes that have used what was provided--they being the best source of information. To state the obvious, these ones would be reluctant to divulge what they know for fear of legal entanglements and hits to their reputations and legacies.

Viewing the larger picture, it is prudent to offer the athletes two things in exchange for their cooperation: immunity from prosecution and the confidentiality the grand jury supposedly provides.

To maximize the amount of information that can be extracted from these witnesses data is provided beforehand about what the government has in the way of evidence in order to (1) let them know that lying is pretty pointless and perjury would be an exercise in futility so it’s best to be up front as possible and (2) it helps refresh the memory of those testifying since specific information is needed (who, what, where, when and why) and generalities are what is often remembered while exact details might be a bit hazy and when you’re looking for testimony that will hold up in court it’s important for that evidence to be verifiable.

Again, pretty straightforward.

With the BALCO investigation, witnesses were given time before meeting with the grand jury to go over the aforementioned evidence for the purposes outlined above: this was given to Marion Jones, Benito Santiago, Jason Giambi etc.

When it came Barry Bonds turn to testify these rules were inexplicably changed--no information would be provided beforehand and he’d have to face the grand jury without being able to refresh his memory as to specifics.

This would seem counterproductive since BALCO was the intended target and Bonds’ testimony would certainly be valuable but they decided to undermine their own goals and getting accurate answers to the questions that were to be posed.

Why?

The funny thing is, BALCO is out of business and those running it were successfully prosecuted so it would seem that all-in-all one would not out of line in saying that it was a rousing success. Still, something odd happened--some athletes gave less than truthful testimony; certainly wrong and nobody is stating otherwise yet these athletes were treated more harshly that the ones guilty of something that is viewed as a great scourge in society.

Even odder, is that it’s beginning to become clear that while BALCO may have been the target, it was not the only one. Right now, the perceived success of the whole BALCO investigation seemingly hinges on putting one man behind bars and it is not Victor Conte or any of the chemists but rather the one time left fielder of the San Francisco Giants.

Barry Bonds.

The government (or whoever was the driving force behind this operation) changed the normal rules and protocols of a grand jury in such a manner that it would potentially undermine the success of nabbing the “ace of spades” in this particular deck.

Why such a counterproductive strategy?

It’s only counterproductive if BALCO was the only target. We all know what Admiral Ackbar would opine about this situation.

As time goes on it is appearing that someone in authority has a personal vendetta against Bonds.

I’m not saying that Bonds didn’t commit perjury or didn’t ingest anabolic steroids but it does seem that an awful lot of time and energy (not to mention taxpayer dollars) is being expended to get one man that isn’t a threat to national security.

It’s not like we’re dealing with a high ranking member of Al Qaeda--just an arrogant prima donna athlete that happens to be pretty obnoxious to people he considers beneath him (which includes pretty much everyone). Other than being the holder of several records, there is nothing exceptional about him and those that match his personality are about as common as skanky music videos by bubblegum pop stars whose music is no longer selling.

Of course, the media--a prime victim of Mr. Congeniality in Bizarro World--has faithfully painted him as something worse than history’s greatest monster to make it seem that the government is doing the work of God even though they have been shown to be clumsy, inept and making up for a lack of skill with an overabundance of zeal.

One needs look no further than the reaction Bonds’ engenders in many. Here is a sample of feedback from just one article:

Bonds is a junkie. Him, and his group of junkies, that actually run the spectrum of color, ruined baseball.

Ruined baseball? I checked Google news and it appears the game’s demise has been greatly exaggerated.

Barry Bonds is an embarassment to the game. Talented or not, he has always been an egocentric, me-first, classless, self-attention-seeking pansy. Not to mention, his inflated head and neck looks like the rear end of a rhinoceros. Ugly stuff.

He has no business being in any big league stadium ever again. He doesn't deserve it.

Unlike the humble, genteel, self effacing, accomodating and deferential Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Jim Rice, Curt Schilling types right? He’s nothing like the sainted Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson Rogers Hornsby et al. Yup, major leaguers have been boy scouts--the whole lot of ’em; faithful to their spouses, kind to fans and media, drink milk and nothing but and open every sentence with “Aw shucks, t‘weren’t nuthin’…” until Bonds came along and embarrassed the sport.

Bonds is an embarrassing bafoon.His God given talent has been wasted on personal greed.Baseball will be much better off without him.

Personal greed? Better off? The fact that people think like this speaks volumes about the objectivity and integrity of the media. Of course we needn't bother with inconvenient facts about the game's current popularity--right?

He almost always comes across as arrogant and self-serving, and I just don't see him as a team player. What baseball team wants a player like that...no matter how good he thinks he is? I see players every day carry themselves with confidence and pride, but also with humility and dedication to the success and image of their team. I wish Barry Bonds would have exemplified these characteristics more throughout his career...maybe he would still be playing the game we all love so much.

Um … wow. Believe it or not there used to be a body of opinion similar to this regarding Ted Williams, Roger Maris, Rickey Henderson and Reggie Jackson. I’m guessing this person views “Field of Dreams” as a documentary. It’s a shame this individual couldn’t spend a little time in a major league clubhouse--listening to the popping sounds of their balloons would be interesting to witness.

a player brings more than his bat to a team. Even if some team picked him up, you can't say right off that he would help them win. He will get some hits, he will get some home runs, but he will also bring his attitude and baggage to the clubhouse and that will influence the balance and cohesion of the team...and unfortunately, I believe that influence will have a negative affect on the team's success.

I wonder if this person realizes that Bonds played on seven post season teams. One would think that the Giants would have won four World Series (1997, 2000, 2002-03) had they replaced Bonds with Juan Pierre…a great guy in the clubhouse and a true team player.

Im just happy hes not coming back...Thats why America is in the sad shape it is...we go by numbers and results instead of honor and integrity. How many world series rings does he have? How many kids do you want looking/acting like him? How many parents want him as thier role model? The answer is NONE.

It appears that we’ve been kicked out of paradise twice: once from the Garden of Eden, the second time in 1985 when Bonds made his major league debut. By the way, Bonds has as many rings as Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. Edgar Martinez, Jeff Bagwell, Vladimir Guerrero, Mike Piazza, Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina…

I suppose they had/have whatever championship destroying affliction that Bonds possesses.

bonds is the biggest disgrace to baseball ever hes been lying for yrs have we all forgotten the year he took off to supposedly heal his knees don't u think its was to clean out his system cuz he know they were going to start testing the next year and all this stuff about him being the greatest what a laff if what mantle did on one leg and no drugs doesnt put him way ahead of this cheating bag of dung its not about color or race which happens to be screamed every time a black man is accused of something its about honesty and integrity and bonds has shown little or none of each keep him out of baseball and the hall of fame

Well, I guess the Black Sox, Pete Rose, Hal Chase, Cap Anson and many others will be relieved to know that--I guess those that enforced the colour line for 60 years are off the hook as well. Of course he has proof that Bonds’ knees were healthy and that he was just avoiding testing since clearly he is an orthopedic surgeon with access to all BLB’s health records.

I mean, this is a small sampling of the hysteria the press has caused the average person to feel regarding Bonds. You can find similar sentiments all over the web of this and worse so we shouldn’t be surprised if some in power might share similar views and abuse that power to bring down one they have been taught is opposed to mom, apple pie, milk and helping little old ladies across the street. After all, they get their information about Bonds from the same sources as the above do so it shouldn’t surprise us that some might have similar sentiments.

Somehow, I think in the year 2109 people will look back at the government, the media and common sentiment regarding a single professional baseball player as evidence of how far society has come since the dark days of the beginning of the millennium.

Best Regards

John

Pitched twaddle...

2009-01-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

It is funny--the deeper we go into the offseason, the less despair I feel about the Jays’ chances in 2009. I’m blaming The Southpaw, The Drunks and my own attempts at auto-~~suggestion~~ delusion in trying to be optimistic about this season for this phenomenon.

To begin with: last year’s offensive woes were due to underperformance by key players and staggeringly awful hitting with runners in scoring position under the previous regime. It’s unlikely that such a thing will repeat itself since they’re random events; both Vernon Wells and Alex Rios should be solid, Lyle Overbay and Scott Rolen should be fully healed, left field and DH will be vastly improved by league average hitting (and it appears the pieces are in place for at least that much) and second base will be well covered offensively by Aaron Hill and Joe Inglett.

On top of this, there are potential platoons that can be used at 1B/2B/LF/DH with Jose Bautista, Michael Barrett and Inglett on the roster. Barrett and Bautista have solid track records in hitting lefties and Rios should be much improved in that regard from last season since he mashed southpaws to the tune of .345/.422/.600 in 2007 and .295/.341/.533 in aught-six (he was a puzzling .289/.321/.414 last season).

I think the offense will be at least league average and might be a good bit better.

The team has the perfect infrastructure in place to work young pitchers into the rotation--a terrific defense behind them, a deep bullpen ready to take over, enough young arms upon whom to spread the workload around and a bona fide ace and rotation anchor to show them the way.

Now, we’ve already discussed David Purcey, Brett Cecil and Mike Maroth in earlier posts this year so I thought it might be fun to check out some other rotation hopefuls that could be part of the mix come Opening Day.

Since I’m enjoying the delusional experience far more than doom 'n' gloomin' about the team’s chances I’ll be as optimistic as possible without going overboard. Probably after Purcey and Cecil, my next pick to win a shot at a starting job is Brad Mills.

Mills, a lefty, pitched at three levels last year: low A, A and AA and before you bemoan his lack of AAA experience bear in mind that Jesse Litsch was initially called up from AA and we all know how that turned out. Mills will be 24 by Opening Day and was 13-5, 1.95 ERA in a bit under 150 IP. His command is promising with a BB/9 of 3.18 and hopefully that will improve and his K/9 is a snappy 9.71; a 3:1 K:BB ratio from a young, hard throwing southpaw bodes well for the future. The best part of his 2008 was that he improved at every level; he posted a 2.55 ERA in low A ball and lowered it to 1.35 in high A and dropped it still further to 1.10 at New Hampshire in AA.

The kid got game.

One guy I liked that I saw 3-4 years ago was a little lefty named Davis Romero. He underwent the Tommy John procedure and missed all of 2007 but he had a live arm and terrific command. I referred to him at the time (remember, this was early in 2005-6) as “Cole Hamels-lite” since he was smaller and a bit less gifted than the Phillies’ young ace. In his first season after his surgery he tossed 106.2 IP and while he was no longer striking out over a batter an inning he did whiff 88 while walking just 29 (a 2.45 BB/9) which I consider promising since command is the last thing to return after ligament transplant surgery and he still managed a K/9 of almost 7.5.

My biggest concern is whether his small frame (5'10'' 160 lb.) can hold up to the rigours of starting--he’s smaller than Pedro Martinez. I absolutely love his stuff and if he could throw 5-6 innings each time out he’d be an asset in the No. 5 spot. While we’re on the subject of Romeros, we have 2005 first round pick Ricky Romero that has often been discussed as a starter for the upcoming season. Not surprisingly, Romero is a lefty and I’m reminded of Dustin McGowan in that he has awesome stuff and obvious physical gifts but does he believe in them and can he harness it?

I remember I took some grief for not being analytical enough when assessing McGowan when I stated that all he needed was the epiphany that his pitches could get major league hitters out and he needed to challenge batters with it. I saw a lack of confidence and not command holding him back. McGowan was giving the man at the plate far too much credit instead of feeling bad for the batsman for what he was about to do to him.

Hey, it’s not always about the numbers--they didn’t coin the expression “million dollar arm--ten cent head” because they liked the sound of it; sometimes a pitcher’s biggest problem is above the neck and not something mechanical or a phenomenon that shows up in the numbers. Sometimes folks are their own toughest critic and a little arrogance in their field never hurts. I know what it’s like to hold a baseball in my hand and thinking the hitter can’t wait for me to let go of it. You end up trying to paint the black rather than ramming it down their throat and daring them to hit it.

Brian Jeroloman--who will hopefully be catching in Toronto before much longer--said of Romero:

"Ricky is so talented and Ricky is a guy we love to have on the bump every day. He wants to win more than anyone else on the field, he will do whatever he can to win the game. Catching him is very easy, it is easy to get on the same page as him, he doesn't realize how good he is, I wish he could face himself and that could make him understand how tough it is to hit against him. He has such dynamite pitches that sometimes he tries to do too much, sometimes he gets in his own way. I love catching him, he is a bulldog, catchers love that....Once he realizes how good he is, that's when things are going to start falling for him." (Hat tip to Batters Box)

While Romero’s career BB/9 (3.8) is unexciting I think that’s more a confidence than a command issue; this much is certain, Cito Gaston’s trademark is getting players to believe in themselves so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles Romero in Spring Training.

So far, we know the Jays have 2-3 spots up for grabs and we’ve touched on the following candidates: Purcey, Cecil, Mills, two Romeros and Mike Maroth; we haven’t yet discussed Scott Richmond, Robert Ray, Matt Clement as well as potential relievers that will be tried as starters--Brian Wolfe, Brian Tallet and possibly Scott Downs but it’s hard not to think that the organization should be able to put together a solid rotation when you again consider the support they’ll have both defensively and the bullpen.

We’ll likely return to this subject and finish going over the candidates but right now Toronto has three jobs (well, I think it’s two since Purcey has likely sown one up barring injury) and 12 talented or experienced guys vying for them. Assuming Purcey is already in, that leaves 11 for two spots and I think when you look at what’s available, Jays’ fans shouldn’t lose too much sleep over who will make quality starts and don’t forget, we haven’t even discussed Dustin McGowan’s return yet.

Best Regards

John

Jays' P-Brain...

2009-01-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

One blog that I haven’t passed a lot of love on to is The Southpaw--mostly because it sucks chunky bilge water and WillRain has the brains of a developmentally-delayed lobotomized Irish Setter on crack that couldn’t scrawl graffiti on a bathroom stall without boring the daylights out of anyone under the age of seven

But I digress.

Had ya going didn’t I Will? (Congrats on the MVN gig BTW.) Seriously though, I often check out his thoughts both on his blog and on Batters Box and while I do not always agree with him, I do find he provides valuable counterpoints and food for thought.

Now back on January 8, Will posted a terrific piece entitled A Short Course in History and if you haven’t checked it out yet--I highly recommend that you do so…I mean it, right now; just right click your mouse on the link I provided and select “Open in New Tab” and you’re all set.

Not that difficult.

It has taken me almost a week of digesting the article (coupled with some good ol’ fashioned procrastination) before it really coalesced in my consciousness. Let’s assume the assertions are true: does this really excuse J.P. Ricciardi? The thing is, while the whole “five-year plan” may have been completely bogus it does beg the question of why--if the Jays weren’t in a position, or rather didn’t wish, to compete--Ricciardi didn’t use that time to position the franchise to be able to make the leap from also-ran to contender when the time was right?

Yes, some moves had to be made to dupe the fan base into thinking that the club was trying to win but at the same time, it would have been a perfect time to stockpile young talent. Why didn’t he go crazy in the Rule 5 draft? Why invest big dollars in mediocre quantities? Why not feign interest in guys like Corey Koskie and bid just high enough to lose and plow that money into player development? Why sign any developed players to long term deals when it wasn’t necessary?

Instead of releasing guys like Chris Carpenter and Woody Williams for nothing--why not take ten cents on the dollar and see if there’s somebody that has a B-prospect that he thinks might develop into something useful?

When Pat Gillick started building the Jays from scratch he adopted the old Sam Pollock method of talent acquisition that Pollock used in developing the Montreal Canadiens into a dynasty: talent is evaluated on a scale from 0-8 with eight being the best. If Pollock (and Gillick) could trade a “2” for a “3” talent--they did so regardless of the position played. If they ended up with a surplus, they packaged it for help in other areas. It required a team do its homework and a lot of teams might not be able to discern the difference between a “2” and a “3” or a “5” and a “6” or for that matter a “0” and a “2.”

This was done at all levels of the organization. It’s hard to pull an outright heist of talent, but a lot of small upgrades throughout (the organization) add up in a hurry. The Toronto Blue Jays had a good chunk of the 1985 division champs in the fold by 1979-80.

I weep when I think about what could have been accomplished in the years when the Blue Jays were faking their competitive orgasms. I mean, if the allegations are true, I don’t view it as an absolution of Ricciardi but rather an indictment--a four year window of opportunity to turn the Toronto Blue Jays into a player-development machine that would have had the Jays ready to take on the world (or at least the AL East) when it was time to get serious. When Rogers was willing to put some money into the roster, can you imagine the trade chits that might have existed in the minor leagues? Those two factors along with the best of the developed talent on the 25-man roster might have made the team formidable indeed.

It wouldn’t be hard (or expensive) to look like they were trying and by eschewing multi-year contracts they would have been in a position to go from the outhouse to the penthouse very quickly.

While I’m sure a degree of building went on, I think had Ricciardi decided to play good organizational soldier while simultaneously really ramping up the talent infrastructure those four years would have produced more fruitage than we have on hand at present.

To shift gears for a moment, probably the one thing that hamstrings the Toronto Blue Jays even more than J.P. Ricciardi’s inability to discern that it is time to lay it on the line is the fact that the franchise are (Bud) Selig loyalists. To be a Selig loyalist one must view players as an expense (something to keep to a minimum) rather than an investment (a vehicle that can be used to increase profits).

For example: right now, Manny Ramirez could be an investment that pays huge dividends to the organization yet Rogers, like Selig, thinks only in terms of what he might cost and not the revenue he could potentially generate. It’s a risk-averse strategy that rarely does well in MLB. Other examples of this is the slotting system of the amateur draft--yes, the draft needs work [fixing] but for right now for top talent a team generally has to choose to pay over slot or focus on players with lesser gifts and abilities.

Now, if you have a top-notch scouting department that is adept at consistently identifying diamonds-in-the-rough it’s not that big a problem yet nobody considers the Blue Jays to be such an animal--sometimes you have to bite the bullet and invest in the obvious stud.

If Barry Bonds was indeed the victim of collusion then again the team being Selig-loyalists hurt them in that Bonds would have solved an obvious problem at minimal cost. Part of the reason for this is that when the Canadian dollar was low a few years back, Selig provided equalization payments to the team to help out. On the one hand there would be a degree of gratitude but on the other hand there is the spectre of hoping for more of the same.

Nothing can harm a team in the Jays’ position (competing in the AL East) then hoping for welfare to generate profits rather than wise investment. Instead of trying to build up revenues by putting an exciting competitive club on the field, the risk-averse Selig loyalists put in just enough money to increase interest in the club without the heavy investment required to take on the big boys in the division.

So, from the lowest part of player development (the draft) to decisions regarding the major league roster, the Toronto Blue Jays are looking to stay on the good side of the commissioner’s office lest they upset the welfare cart. While Rogers Communication has money to burn, they aren’t spending it on the Blue Jays this year--partly due to the economy but chances are good that Selig’s non-stop proselytizing about being especially fiscally conservative this offseason has the club falling into step. There are bargains to be had in the free agent market where the team need it most (offense) but the Jays refuse to partake--oddly enough at a time when a plea for equalization payments may be in the offing.

Unless you have a terrific front office and player development and scouting system in place, there’s nothing that is more damaging to a team’s chances at post season baseball than fealty to Selig.

Best Regards

John

Anchor...away!

2009-01-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

I wonder if Manny Ramirez will come to realize that Scott Boras has become a liability?

Let’s face it, management would love to take the boots to Boras and the current state of the economy is giving them an opening. Oh sure, Mark Teixeira got his money but it was from the Yankees. There are two economies right now in MLB: the New York Yankees and everyone else and what goes on in one has no relation to the other.

Teixeira was the shiniest bauble in the marketplace insofar as position players went and the Bronx Bombers had an opening and the money to spend. Chances are good a different agent probably could have gotten close to that from the Yanks so it was hardly a coup for the Earl of Avarice.

As to the rest of his clients--Boras’s favourite tactic of waiting out the market could really backfire this season since as the economy worsens and roster spots are filled by the Pat Burrell’s, the Raul Ibanez’s, the Milton Bradley’s the number of wealthy bidders goes down.

Right now only one club has made an offer and that offer wasn’t viewed as a “serious” one by Dearth Insidious.

Of course, there is always Derek Lowe and Oliver Perez and I’m willing to bet that the one that signs first gets the better of the two deals while the Ollie-Come-Lately probably gets a one year deal with an option and hoping that the economy improves.

Getting back to Ramirez--nobody trusts his agent. He makes his claims, floats rumours, plants stories all in hope of getting somebody anybody to bite so he can get a bidding war going between they and the Dodgers. After last year’s Andruw Jones debacle Ned Colletti and Frank McCourt are unlikely to bid against themselves so Boras knows he needs to find a second bidder to get a better deal than what was offered earlier.

I’m willing to bet that a handful of teams would love Ramirez’s bat in the middle of their lineup and would be willing to guarantee three years (especially an AL club) but are loath to deal with Boras since they have no idea whether or not he is being truthful in negotiations.

If I was Manny Ramirez “Ooooo look! A dog with a puffy tail! Tee hee hee hee!!”

O.K. let’s try that again; were I in Manny Ramirez’s situation I would publicly fire Boras (yes, I would enjoy that and I won’t pretend that I wouldn’t) and take matters into my own hands, drop it, roll around on it before getting back into my hands and decide precisely what I want. While I’m certain he would like a pile of money guaranteed over several years (who wouldn’t?) I’m willing to guess that there are other things that matter to him as well. That being the case, he should reflect on what is attainable among those desires and see if a team is willing to give it to him.

I feel pretty confident he could get three years and $50+ million if money is his primary consideration if he spoke to a team without you-know-who in tow. If he’s looking for payback at the Red Sox obviously what I would love to see him do is pick up J.P. Ricciardi and go visit the suits at Rogers Communication and tell them flat out he wants to be a Blue Jay and is willing to accept a creative contract (with things like a ton of deferred money and bonuses based on attendance although I am not certain that is allowed by the collective bargaining agreement--I do know Bill Veeck used to do it for Bobby Feller) in order to make it happen.

I will now pause while all of you enjoy a good laugh at my expense for being so incredibly and pathetically delusional--as well you should.

O.K. you can stop now.

That's enough!

I mean it!

Now you're just being nasty.

Hyperventilated did we? Serves you right for carrying on like that. You probably wet yourself too didn't you? Well, don't look to me for sympathy.

If winning another ring is something he wants to go for then if he’s willing to take a little less then the possibilities are endless--especially if he’s willing to sign a one-year deal and hope the market is better in 2010.

Regardless, while Scott Boras is more than capable of making me eat crow-a-la-king I think it is pretty obvious that they badly misread the market. Nobody expected the economy to tank as badly as it has and even fewer folks could have predicted clubs suddenly becoming more aware of things like defense, base running and other factors; having said that, it should have been seen as inevitable since contracts started to regularly top $20 million per annum. Sooner or later teams would begin to wonder if a well-rounded youngster in their own system making the major league minimum couldn’t provide almost as much overall value (run production/run prevention/base running/health, read: games played) as a one-dimensional slugger well into his 30’s with creaky joints that will put runs on the board but offsets that with poor fielding and mediocre base running that is hoping for $15-$20 million a year until long after he becomes unable to justify those salary levels.

It’s the same thing with pitchers; getting back to the Jays--the best indicators of pitching performance are H/9, BB/9 and K/9. We’ll again compare A.J. Burnett (slated to make $16.5 million per year for the next five years) with David Purcey (probably close to the major league minimum and not eligible for arbitration until 2011) from the time Purcey was given a full time job in the rotation:


Pitcher       H/9  BB/9  K/9
A.J. Burnett  8.6  3.5   9.4
David Purcey  9.4  2.8   8.6

Both average about the same amount of baserunners per nine innings and Purcey can be expected to improve and is likely to be a good bet to throw more innings in 2009 than Burnett. Is what A.J. brings to the table worth $16 million more than the big lefty will next season?

This is the environment Boramirez is attempting to land a four year/$100 million contract in; if he signs with an NL team will his declining bat (ages 37-40) coupled with the runs given up with his poor defense and mediocre base running give more value than a lesser (though improving) hitter than can flash some leather and be a heads up base runner making the major league minimum? Or for that matter--what will arbitration-eligibles Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier give the Dodgers in total package (not to mention games played) over the next three years before free agency compared with what a declining Manny Ramirez is looking for? Chances are good that both men will make far less combined in 2009 than Ramirez but what will give more bang for the buck?

Silly question.

Yes, Manny sells tickets but only as long as he hits and nobody knows how much longer that will be. However, clubs are looking for on field value over box office value right now. Right now, Manny’s biggest liabilities in team’s minds and the marketplace in general are his age, his defense and his agent.

He can only eliminate one of those--he might be better off doing just that.

Best Regards

John

Up Dawson's creek...

2009-01-09T14:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I feel safe in saying that 2009 will not be Tim Raines’ year.

Mind you, when Tom Tango formed "The Dweeb Team" of himself, Jonah Keri, Craig Burley, Neate Sager and yours truly we had no illusions after he received less than 30% of the vote last year that this would be a quick and easy process. We’ve watched the tireless efforts of Rich Lederer in educating the masses regarding Bert Blyleven to understand what is required.

I think I speak for our little group that we’re rooting for Blyleven if for no other reason than once he gets in, Lederer will be focusing his talents on Raines--certainly a powerful ally and I’m guessing Tom will extend an invite to him should the 287-game winner take his rightful place among the immortals.

Heck, he’s pretty much an unofficial member at this point contributing to our modest little site and plugging the Expos’ great whenever possible and for this we owe him our thanks.

Sadly, 2008 was not a good year for me and I didn’t get nearly the lobbying efforts accomplished for Raines that I had hoped and pray aught-nine will be a kinder 12 months. I guess I can take a little solace in knowing that I probably would not have made a major difference this year but with Rickey Henderson due to go in I do feel more attention will be paid to “Rock” and his career since the two were often compared back in the mid-to-late 1980’s and for a significant stretch Raines was every bit as good as Rickey but Henderson did it for much, much longer.

Bottom line--we’ll never see another Rickey Henderson-type career: a leadoff man with almost 300 HR and over 1000 RBI plus topping 2000 runs and walks, 3000 hits and we haven’t even gotten to his trademark--the stolen base which he accomplished over 1400 times. He isn’t the baseline for the Hall--the man is a first ballot, inner-circle all-time great that would be in Cooperstown regardless of how “small” the Hall of Fame might have been had selections been done more carefully.

Tim Raines doesn’t have to be Rickey Henderson to be worthy but it is interesting that for about five years--he was just that.

However, this isn’t about Raines--he isn’t on the cusp (yet) but a teammate of his certainly is--Andre Dawson.

The biggest knock against him is his, quite frankly mediocre, on base percentage of .323. Now I have heard a lot of reasons why it should be discounted and some of them are ridiculous. I mean, so what if the base on balls wasn’t as highly regarded then as it is today--it’s still every bit as valuable. What I do think is, while it is a blemish on his record and should not be ignored, I feel the rest of his career makes up for that one deficiency in his game.

I look at Richie Ashburn--a man that was once on my list of players that belonged in the Hall of Fame and I was gratified in 1995 when he took his rightful place there (and fair minds can disagree with me on his worthiness)--as a bit of a comp to Dawson; not so much in statistical comparison but in his Hall of Fame case.

Like Dawson, Ashburn had a statistical flaw--a below average slugging percentage; indeed his OBP (.398) was higher than his SLG (.382). Both men were terrific defensive centerfielders, good base runners and decent base thieves and considered good teammates with solid character. However, their roles in the lineup were different; Ashburn batted leadoff where on base percentage is considered more valuable than slugging average. Conversely, Dawson was a middle-of-the-order hitter where home runs and power (slugging) are more valued than the ability to reach base.

Of course, that was the nature of their gifts, Ashburn would likely have been a lesser player if he sacrificed contact for power and in the same way, Dawson probably would have lost value had he sacrificed power for better contact since they were focusing on their weaknesses rather than building on their strengths. Ashburn was 5'10'' 170 lb. Dawson, 6'3'' 200 lb--one had a smaller strike zone, the other a more powerful physique--generally one plays the cards they are dealt.

While it is obvious that Dawson would have been a better player had he possessed the ability to walk more, chances are good that his managers would have become upset if he started to look to merely reach base with two men on and a full count than gearing up for the fastball. I feel comfortable in saying this because for a good chunk of 2008 I watched a number of Blue Jay (supposed) run producers do just that: have men on base and pass on a juicy pitch hoping that ball four is called rather than looking at putting the ball in the gap or over the fence.

The team expected Dawson to swing the bat, move runners and get them home since that was what he was best at--had he an aptitude for getting on base and working the count he might not have batted where he did in the lineup. I cannot fault a man for playing within himself and acting in accord with what he perceives his job description to be any more than I could fault Ashburn for looking for ball four on a 3-1 count when Del Ennis and Willie Jones are somewhere behind you in the batting order.

What are we left with in Dawson? A Gold Glover at two outfield positions--both key defensive ones (CF and RF), is top five in extra base hits (career) among players with 1000 or more games in CF (23rd overall all-time) and one of just 31 players in baseball history with 1000 or more. Among those, only Luis Gonzalez and possibly Rafael Palmeiro (I guess Sammy Sosa could fall short) aren’t in the Hall or certain to go and those players have been associated with steroids although Sosa hasn’t been definitely linked. Dawson finished with 2774 hits was 20-20 five times in six seasons (finishing his career as one of only six players with 300 HR and 300 stolen bases and half them--Steve Finley, Reggie Sanders and *cough* Barry Bonds--did it in the silly-ball era) and had 587 of his extra base hits playing half his games in a tough hitter’s park in Montreal before moving on to Chicago.

A quick digression: the other two 300-300 guys prior to the so called “silly-ball era” are Willie Mays and Bobby Bonds and I feel quite strongly that Barry’s dad is deserving.

I don’t think one has to be any better than that to be a Hall of Famer and I feel the totality of those achievements is enough to overcome a .323 OBP.

Best Regards

John

Breaking winds of change...

2009-01-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

I cannot help but wonder if this offseason might be a blessing in disguise for MLB.

Think about what is transpiring: teams are hoarding young, inexpensive talent and worrying about draft picks; clubs are looking at the totality of a given player’s skill set as never before and not just focusing on home runs, on base and slugging percentage--they’re wondering about their defense, their base running…the works.

More well rounded young talent are being considered for jobs over one-dimensional sluggers that are 35 or older.

Is the economy going to bring down the curtain on the “chicks dig the long ball” era as teams pinching pennies want to spend their money on things other than the ability to drive in three runs while giving up four?

Sadly, I think while the trend may be beginning I do think there will be some stupidity yet to come in the hot stove league. While I do not begrudge the players what they can get it is nice to see guys like Manny Ramirez and Adam Dunn begin to sweat, I like the fact that the Rays seemingly got a real deal on Pat Burrell (I use the word “seemingly” in that a slugger like him would generally command a lot more but let’s face it--he can hit and that’s his only skill) and it appears that teams are realizing that defense wins ball games as well.

Look at the Toronto Blue Jays--how much has their vaunted pitching of the last two seasons been the result of airtight defense? If that is indeed the case, why can’t Brett Cecil, David Purcey and possibly Scott Richmond or one of the Romero boys duplicate what Shaun Marcum, Dustin McGowan and Jesse Litsch did so superbly in 2007?

Of course, it would also look so good on Moby Boras--the great blight Dick (or something like that).

I know it only takes one sucker (see: Jones, Andruw circa December 12, 2007) for Boras to make a big score for one of his clients but the uncertain economy might be accelerating teams’ learning curve in dealing with the agent and more closely scrutinizing his tactics.

It may be that the Jones’ deal--a coup for Boras at the time--might have backfired in that it serves as a powerful object lesson regarding the hazards of not being exceedingly careful in their interactions with him; Barry Zito likewise. The current economic climate would make duplicating such a mistake a major catastrophe for many teams. The fact that Boras helped the Dodgers restructure the contract speaks volumes when you couple it with the Manny-to-the-Giants rumours.

Yes, San Fran might be serious about acquiring the enigmatic slugger but the club has been burned badly by Boras before (alliteration unintentional but cool nevertheless) with Zito and probably aren’t interested in committing 4-5 years at Boras-level compensation for a superb slugger that offers nothing else to a team. However, if you wish to build a fire under Ned Colletti and the Dodgers, the Giants are the fuel that needs to be utilized.

Now Boras is about as altruistic as the recently deceased Carl Pohlad who is rumoured to have a specially designed burial vault that require night crawlers pay a toll before entering which means that he didn’t restructure Jones’ contract out of the goodness of his heart. I’m guessing he did it to free up money for Manny Ramirez.

What makes it funny is that after November 14, Boras stated that he and Manny were now prepared to hear “serious offers” for his services but the only confirmed one is the less than serious offer made by the Dodgers when they had an exclusive window for negotiations for Ramirez. Now Boras is in the unenviable position of going back to the Dodgers and seeing if he can squeeze more money out of the club through redoing Jones’ contract and desperately trying to the Giants involved.

If Ramirez does indeed go back and for less than what was offered (or in the ballpark of) in early November I predict the following Boras’ spin: “Manny really wanted to stay with the Dodgers, he loves it there and there really was no second choice in his mind. A lot of teams offered a lot more but Ramirez was willing to take less to remain where he is comfortable. It wasn’t about the money for Manny as events have clearly demonstrated but his desire to remain in LA. As his agent I have to abide by my clients’ wishes” (or words to that effect).

Of course, there also remain Derek Lowe and Oliver Perez and I will be shocked if one of them doesn’t land a completely ridiculous contract that will join Zito in the economic aviary with the other albatrosses that Boras is noted for; let’s face it--the man feels he has failed his clients if they do not become a sunk cost at some point during the contract. Unfortunately for him, teams are desperately trying to avoid these as never before.

Getting back to the original premise of the post; it could be that teams finally understand how to work the system to their advantage and this will both improve the product on the field and hurt Boras. Clubs (hopefully) will be mindful of what players can and cannot do and Boras is a master and painting what a player can do as proof of his inner circle Hall of Fame greatness and what he cannot do as an irrelevant trifle not be worried about. If teams objectively assess talent in an ongoing basis then Boras is in trouble.

What I really like about this potential change is that while I enjoy the occasional barn-burning slugfest, I love baseball for a myriad of things: the 3-6-1 double play, Ichiro gunning down a player at the plate, watching Devon White (back in the day) glide effortlessly into the gap to turn extra bases into a routine out. I adore watching John McDonald play defense, while I hate it as a Blue Jays fan--I love watching Jacob Ellsbury turn a walk into a double and there’s little anyone can do about it. Baseball was about Rickey and Rock Raines, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker (or Robbie Alomar and Omar Vizquel) up the middle, the Mets’ defensive infield of John Olerud, Edgardo Alfonzo, Rey Ordonez and Robin Ventura; there was Terry Mulholland’s pickoff move, Pudge Rodriguez gunning down base thieves, Greg Maddux throwing a complete game using little more than fastball in/fastball out impeccably spotted in the strike zone.

Getting away from the era of the monster slugger and the so-called “Moneyball A’s” of long at bats and three-run jacks and getting back to the fun of the 1970’s and 80’s suit me just fine (AND GET OFF MY LAWN!!).

Best Regards

John

He won't sell his soul...

2009-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

... and he won't sell his roster. I’m still amazed.

We know the economy is in the tank, sponsors are pulling out, companies' and fans' priorities are being reassessed and questions about where to devote precious dollars are being scrutinized in a way that hasn’t been done in a very, very long time.

There is going to be competition in the entertainment marketplace in a big way as various entities will be fiercely vying for consumers’ disposable income. Your average, everyday person will be looking to get maximum bang for their bucks when they decide to fork over a few denarii for an outing.

In the midst of this, J.P. Ricciardi is doing his level best to let the marketplace know that the 2009 Blue Jays are nothing to get excited about—the offseason buzz has been decidedly negative. For every move made by teams they’re expected to compete against, Ricciardi counters by saying in effect “Well, it sucks to be us.”

I realize that J.P. has his orders and has little payroll room etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseum but is there so little creativity in the man’s soul (his recent work seems to affirm this in screeching fashion) that he has no idea of how to sell what he has in his possession?

For instance, the biggest offseason downer is the fact that A.J. Burnett is gone, Shaun Marcum is out for next season and Dustin McGowan will not be back until May and nobody knows how effective he will be upon his return. Ricciardi’s solution is to say they cannot afford to be in on the C.C. Sabathia sweepstakes, Derek Lowe is too expensive, A.J. is gone and he’d have to clear payroll to add the punch line to a joke in the guise of Carl Pavano to the roster.

Wow, way to get folks excited J.P-Brain.

Why not try a different approach? When asked about the pitching, point out “Hey, would you like David Price in the rotation? Well guess what--check this out…


Age   IP    H   BB   K   ERA BB/9  K/9
22  109.2  92  32  109 2.30 2.63 8.95
21  118.2 100  41  129 2.88 3.11 9.78

…the 21 year old? That’s our boy Brett Cecil and he’s a year younger than Mr. Price--suffice it to say we think he’ll be a lot better than Derek Lowe possibly as early as next year and he’ll work for a lot less.”

If the subject of Burnett comes up:

“Uh guys, when we gave Purcey a full time job last season he posted a BB/9 of 2.81, gave up about a hit per inning pitched and struck out close to a batter an inning--A.J. walked about 3.5 per nine and gave up only a little fewer hits to innings pitched (than Purcey) and the difference in their K/9 was 9.4 to 8.6; Purcey is five years younger, a lefty and will make about $16 million less per year--I’m willing to bet he’ll be almost as good as Burnett and toss more innings in 2009 so why do we need him?”

Then I’d wrap up with: “On top of all that, we have an embarrassment of riches that will be vying for starting jobs--we have a couple of vets in Matt Clement and Mike Maroth and let me tell you…they’ll be in tough this year since they have to beat out the Romero boys, Brad Mills and Scott Richmond--speaking of whom, did you know Scotty gave us 27 pretty solid innings and walked two guys last season?--if they want a spot in the rotation.

In case you’ve forgotten, baseball’s best bullpen is gonna be better this year so they’ll have plenty of support. Not only that, they’ll be backed by one of the better defences in the league--they’ll have the assurance that balls in play are gonna be turned into outs. When you have that, why blow eight figures and a long term commitment on guys whose biggest asset is a bunch of years of big league service? How many pitchers on Tampa’s starting staff did you know a lot about this time last year?”

If the offense comes up: “Fellas, I goofed; Gary Denbo is a terrific hitting coach but was a bad fit on the Jays. What we saw under Cito and Gene is a lot closer to our true talent level than what we saw in the first half of 2008. Overbay and Rolen are fully healthy with no lingering affects from their injuries, we have Aaron Hill back, we have a couple of guys that mash lefties that we didn‘t have when we started 2008 in Jose Bautista and Michael Barrett that can help out Lyle and Adam Lind should they need it. Travis Snider is a stud and I expect him to break out soon if not this season”

“Scutaro can probably get on base at a .350 clip and that ain‘t bad, Hill has Joe Inglett to help him against righties if he needs it, Wells/Rios/Overbay/Rolen/Lind/Snider may not have a 40 HR hitter in the bunch but there isn’t a lightweight among them either--I’ll tell you something, Cito can’t wait for the season to start, he loves the lineup and thinks they’ll open a lot of eyes. If it turns out it is a little light then we can revisit it before the season gets too old but I don’t think we’ll need to do so.

We’ve had different teams in 2006, ‘07 and ‘08 and all of them played tough within the division and will continue to do so--our biggest bugaboo was against second division teams but under Gaston we played .625 ball over the final 40 games against them.

Yeah, money is nice to have but if there was ever a season where the kids would be the best option for reloading--this is it. My only concern is inexperience but I swear--we have the talent.”

That is how you sell the Blue Jays’ offseason--let the fans know what you have rather than pointing out what they cannot have.

Sadly, it’s probably too late--wouldn’t it be ironic if the Jays did really well in 2009 but attendance was down since folks assumed the team wasn’t worth the bother after an offseason of Retardiisms?

Best Regards

John

Today’s happy thoughts…

2009-01-02T06:28:00.000-08:00

I woke up on the right side of the bed (which means I didn’t do a face plant into the wall when I got up) so I’m not in a lousy mood for a change. Anyway—here is the story of two young pitchers—both southpaws--that logged time in high A, AA and AAA ball in 2008:


Age   IP    H   BB   K   ERA BB/9  K/9
 22  109.2  92  32  109 2.30 2.63 8.95 
 21  118.2 100  41  129 2.88 3.11 9.78

The older pitcher is considered the second coming and the reason that the Tampa
Bay Rays are considered solid bets to again reach October baseball; the younger guy—who did every bit as well considering the age difference isn’t even a lot of fans’ radar for the coming season.

We recognize the older player as being phenom David Price but who is this boy wonder almost duplicating his minor league performance despite being a year younger?

It’s the Toronto Blue Jays’ own Brett Cecil.

Can you imagine the hype surrounding this kid were he a Yankee or a Red Sox farm hand? Look at all the attention Price has received and the hopes pinned on him for 2009 but I’m willing to bet that only the hard core Jays’ fan is aware of what Cecil accomplished in 2008 and if they’re cognizant of him at all it’s only in passing—some youngster that is a part of the club’s indefinite future.

Right now, the rotation looks like: Roy Halladay, Jesse Litsch and David Purcey while waiting for the return of Dustin McGowan some time in May with the final two slots to be determined in Spring Training. If Price is ready to make his mark on a pennant contender then why is Cecil not ready to compete for a job in the starting rotation?

I think if he’s given a fair shot in the spring he might be the solution for one of the openings on the starting staff.

And now, the rest of the story…

Anyway, let’s have some fun and jump in the ol’ time machine to 1993. There was a 30 year old lefty that hadn’t pitched in the majors since May 1991 when he posted a 5.74 ERA. He had a career 34-54, 4.56 ERA (league average was below four back then) with decent but not overwhelming command (3.63 BB/9) but his strikeout totals (5.6 K/9) suggested that he’d never amount to much. Oh sure, he’d tossed 200 innings a couple of times and was about league average in one of those seasons but you’d have to be pretty desperate to think he had anything to offer to a team.

The Baltimore Orioles took a flyer on him and he made 25 starts, went 12-9, 3.43 ERA (130 ERA+) in 152 innings pitched. By the way he added 200 more wins since then with a 4.10 ERA (league average having risen to over 4.50 is many seasons) and tossed 3000+ innings with a couple of 20-win seasons, won a World Series game (and ring), just signed a two-year contract and has an outside shot at the Hall of Fame.

Of course, I speak of Jamie Moyer.

Well, that sounds an awful lot like the first part of Mike Maroth’s career except Maroth has better command although inferior strikeout totals. The thing is, sometimes it’s not as hopeless as we might think. It’s safe to say that Orioles fans probably were wondering why their team went dumpster diving after Moyer.

The funny thing is, sometimes lefties mature a bit later in their careers. Randy Johnson went from hard throwing, erratic underachiever before age 30 to being a five-time Cy Young winner on the cusp of 300 wins after turning 30; Al Leiter was injury prone and inconsistent before 30 then winning 129 games and a ring after the big 3-0; Kenny Rogers won 53 games in his 20’s but since the year he turned 30 won 163 topping 200 innings six times; Chuck Finley won 63 games in the seven seasons before he passed the milestone and 127 from age 30-39; Jerry Koosman was 65-53 before and 157-156 afterward but had his two 20-win (and eight 200+ IP) seasons after hitting 30; Eddie Lopat went from decent starter to part of a pitching triumvirate (along with Vic Raschi and Allie Reynolds) that won five straight world championships; David Wells was a bit of a head case before he turned 30 and a 47-37, 3.78 ERA and had never topped 200 innings but topped it eight times afterward, won 20 games once, threw a perfect game, became one of the most vaunted big game pitchers of his time and went 192-120 post-30.

For whatever reason, sometimes the light bulb goes on and southpaws that were lightly regarded around age 30 and they go on to have spectacular careers.

Will Mike Maroth join them? Who knows? However, it would be foolish to write off any lefty until you detect a rotting smell.

Maybe the starting rotation will be a pleasant surprise in 2009.

Best Regards

John

Welcome to 2000-whine…

2009-01-01T06:28:00.000-08:00

Be still my beating heart.

O.K. time to go into full spin mode since the alternative involves a length of rope and a knot behind the left ear. The Toronto Blue Jays (who are the New York Yankees in Bizarro World) haven’t just gone dumpster diving; they’ve followed around the dog that got into the dumpster before them until digestion was fully accomplished and took the end result and signed them to minor league contracts.

I’m just gonna comment on two of them (they inked four) because it only hurts half as much.

Mike Maroth’s claim to fame is being a recent 20 game loser having gone 9-21 in 2003 at age 25. He is left handed which is promising and has good command with a career BB/9 of 2.57 and has a GB/FB ratio of 1.31 even though he doesn’t strike out many—he sounds like a southpaw version of Jesse Litsch. In 2004, he logged over 200 league average innings which would be awesome if he could come close to that and his career to date is reminiscent of Jamie Moyer who didn’t find himself until he was Maroth’s age.

So, when you take that along with the Jays’ defense and bullpen there is a remote chance that—if healthy—he could be a useful member of the rotation. I don’t think he will mind you but I am trying to be optimistic here.

Michael Barrett is still young enough to be capable and unlike Rod Barajas seems to be able to hit lefties fairly consistently although he’s pretty incompetent in hitting righties. It may seem odd to platoon two right handed hitters but if Barrett can continue mashing southpaws (.295/.380/.587) as he has since 2005 and Barajas can be league average against right-handers then there shouldn’t be a black hole offensively behind the dish. Let’s face it, Barajas is primarily a defensive receiver that will go on the odd hot streak as he did for 28 games last season batting .348/.408/.584 but other than the occasional longball is pretty much an out machine (.289 career OBP)—I mean, when you’re looking up at Omar Moreno and have John McDonald breathing down your neck on the OBP standings then chances are good you’re inept offensively.

Did the Jays improve themselves? It’s possible—I just worry that they’ll win jobs based on their veterany goodness rather than actual performance.

Anyway, I finally put together a comprehensive reply to Jack Marshall’s article for The Hardball Times and part two of my Blue Jays’ 2000-hate crap up for SMSN Sports. As to the THT piece, be sure to use the loo and pack a lunch because it’s a beast of an article. I generally shoot for no more than 1200-1500 words when I write anything anymore and “The Baseball Ethicist—a reply” ran over 5200. Jack and I exchanged pleasantries on Ball Hype on it (seriously, there is no animosity between us—we just agree to disagree and not let somebody we’ve never met be the source of hostilities…pretty silly of us eh?).

Well, I’ll soon be back in harness although I did a lot more writing during my December break than I intended—oh well.

Best Regards

John

The baseball ethicist: Episode 3--Revenge of the Myth...

2008-12-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I’m still at it. Let’s pick up where we left off…

But no one could deny that Bonds was the face of baseball’s steroid disgrace. That gave him special status, or perhaps a better word is infamy.

I would say that he was the successor to Mark McGwire and the only reason for that was the fact that McGwire disappeared after his appearance before the government oversight committee while Bonds continued to play and was the subject of nonstop media scrutiny. A minor point but one worth noting and it’s good to remember that at the outset of Jose Canseco’s allegations, MLB went out of its way to protect and defend “Big Mac.”

A team could employ one of the many mediocre, borderline or journeyman players whose names appeared in the Mitchell Report without making the implied statement that it was endorsing and rewarding a cheat. Signing Brendan Donnelly, Paul Lo Duca or Paul Byrd would not be seen as an enlistment in the Dark Side.

Why? Suppose players were involved in a kiddie-porn ring; would the same logic be applied? Only the most notorious ringleader need be culled from the game while teams could sign those that weren't as involved without enlisting in the Dark Side?

What if it wasn't steroids but another drug, perhaps a second cocaine scandal--same rule of thumb apply?

Again, I am not comfortable with this line of reasoning.

Bonds was a different matter entirely, if for no other reason than he had ridden performance enhancement drugs to the pinnacle of baseball’s records. He was the Big Enchilada, the Numero Uno: his career stood for the proposition that steroid use could turn a great player into a super-human juggernaut, shattering all previous limits; that they could allow players to improve dramatically when historically athletes began to decline; that the drugs could lengthen their careers, make the players become more valuable to their teams, and earn them millions more dollars than they would have earned otherwise—and they could get away with it.

He became numero uno with MLB's help--he became the Big Enchilada because MLB wished to employ him until Aaron's record fell because there was money to be made. Earlier, Marshall stated "The evidence that Bonds was a long-time, intentional, unapologetic and incredibly successful chemical cheat had been mounting for years" but it was only at the end that MLB was right to act despite long standing knowledge that Bonds was juicing? Had the sport acted earlier he would not have become “the Big Enchilada” is that not so? Doesn’t that make Bonds’ becoming such a joint effort between MLB and BLB?

Bonds was regarded differently because he was different. His success made him different. His arrogant public stance that there was nothing wrong with his conduct made him different. How a team regarded Barry Bonds was unavoidably going to be a statement about steroids, rules, lawbreaking, character and baseball’s values.

Let's see, MLB arrogantly denied there was a drug problem, Bud Selig slapped a gag order on the sport regarding the subject, Selig deliberately presented misleading information before the government reform committee regarding the effectiveness of its drug test program and gleefully cashed the checks from the home run boom knowing that the achievements were tainted (surely, if Bonds usage was known “for years” plus they had the statements from David Wells, Curt Schilling, Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco that must have given them an inkling about it)--not to mention illegal--and didn’t act until government pressure made it impossible to avoid or ignore any longer.

Baseball’s values? I’m sorry; all I see are two sides of the same coin.

Regarding Bonds’ effect, Marshall states to sum up his point of cognitive dissonance:

I would not continue to follow or support the team if it embraced the warped ethics of Barry Bonds and the steroid apologists by signing him. I would, I am quite sure, actively dislike the team until a new regime took over, and it would probably never regain my previous level of loyalty or good will. Cognitive dissonance dictates that the team’s unavoidable decline on the value scale would also pull down others associated closely with it, such as its players, management, and major league baseball itself.

Two things jump out regarding this—one, he fails to cite a single other example in the history of the sport where such a thing might take place ignoring that statutory rapists, racists, spouse abusers, drug users and dealers (both PED and narcotic), tax evaders, those that issue legitimate death threats toward their children and so many other anti social disgusting acts have yet to trigger such a reaction in the marketplace. Two, Marshall projects his own very strong feelings on Bonds and projects them onto the population at large without taking the aforementioned history of such things into account. Yes, he could take a poll and probably get enough people to agree with him but talk is cheap—what have the actions of fans since the institution of the National League demonstrated to be the case regarding such things?

The team that hired Barry Bonds would be making a devastating statement of its own values and priorities, which would be this: "Cheating and using performance enhancing drugs is not as big a negative on our scale as winning is a positive. So if you help us win enough games, cheating is OK. In fact, it will be rewarded: observe how we hire Barry Bonds despite overwhelming evidence of steroid use and multiple federal indictments." Hiring Barry Bonds would specifically contradict the Mitchell Report and what it stood for, which was essentially setting the cognitive dissonance value for using performance-enhancing drugs as prohibitively negative.

One would have to ask that were the above true, what does it say about a team’s values (and MLB as a whole) about hiring and retaining in recent years: Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Steve Howe, Willie Wilson, Sidney Ponson, Luis Polonia, Albert Belle, Brett Myers, Julio Lugo, John Rocker, the Mitchell Report players, Dave Parker, Keith Hernandez, Elijah Dukes, Jose Mesa and so many others but to avoid Bonds suddenly sanctifies the sport?

Don’t forget that the Mitchell Report got its names from (1) the BALCO investigation (2) Kirk Radomski and Brian MacNamee (3) The Signature Pharmacy and that’s it. Does anyone think that those were the only sources for PED used by players? However, that turned up almost 90 names—tip of the iceberg indeed yet banishing Bonds suddenly gives the sport an air of sanctity and integrity and undoes over a decade of damage and allows baseball to expiate its sins?

Sure: some factors could raise a player’s score: cooperating with Mitchell (Giambi), apologizing (Pettite), minimal use (Paul Byrd), not being good or healthy enough to matter (lots of guys). But Bonds had many factors that deepened his negative score: greed, warping the records, encouraging other players to use by his success, arrogance, embarrassing the sport through his prominence, and more.

Again, Marshall forgets that records were warped because MLB wanted the money from Bonds “warping” them and didn’t act until after they were “warped” yet assigns no harm, no foul to the sport’s complicity in the “warping.” As to the other issues…

Greed: See MLB—BLB’s accomplice.

Encouraging other players to use by his success: Who encouraged Bonds to use? What about "chicks dig the long ball?" What encouraged usage more?

Arrogance: Like asserting that the sport didn’t have a drug problem and threatening fines for anyone discussing it and later trying to rewrite history in their favour? Oops—that was Bud Selig…not Barry Bonds.

Embarrassing the sport through his prominence: MLB profited handsomely from his prominence did it not? It failed to act until that prominence paid off is that not so?

Again, all I see are two sides of the same coin: BLB/MLB--a big head and a horse's tail (end).

Thus it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that no team took that course, nor should any team have been accused of negligence or collusion for reaching the only responsible and logical conclusion available. But a lot of sportswriters and sports commentators think values, standards and ethics are irrelevant to baseball.

They are so wrong.

And if collusion is established—then what? Sadly, Marshall misses the point—this commentator and writer feels quite strongly that “values, standards and ethics” aren’t irrelevant in baseball, he just feels that they simply do not exist there and the unofficial expulsion of Barry Lamar Bonds is proof of that...not proof that the sport possesses such things because it never has.

Sadly, I think Marshall—most likely a conscientious and good-hearted man has fallen into a trap and come to a conclusion and bent his values and data to fit that conclusion and has allowed his strong dislike of Barry Bonds to cloud his ethics in this particular instance.

If that makes me unreasonable and unethical—so be it. I will recant what I have written over the last year if an independent arbitrator looks at the evidence and determines that MLB did not collude in this instance. What will Jack Marshall say if they are indeed found guilty?

Best Regards

John

The baseball ethicist: Episode 2--Attack of the Clown...

2008-12-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

Well, more on Jack Marshall’s THT column dealt with yesterday…

Cynics may scoff ... but baseball is the one professional sport that carries with it a duty to the American culture. Character counts in America, and baseball is bound by history, tradition and its role in legend and myth to make certain that character counts on its playing fields as well. ... What it does have that no other professional sport even values very much is integrity, or at least an appreciation that integrity is important.

I envy Mr. Marshall—really I do, to be able to view baseball in such a light is something I wish I could return to; from that point of view ignorance is indeed bliss since it would allow us to enjoy the game in all it’s beauty unencumbered by the baggage that can besmirch the experience.

However, as a student (albeit a level below Steve Treder) of baseball’s history I find his statement incredible; this is a game that excluded non-Caucasian players, had an owner that tried to aid the cover-up of the Black Sox scandal until it became impossible, tolerated gambling until it turned on them, exploited players at every turn, broke rules that they themselves agreed to abide by (collusion), extorts tens of billions of dollars for stadium scams through lies and fraudulent claims, provided illegal drugs for players (amphetamines), were major enablers of the steroid scandal (something Marshall acknowledges), bold-faced lied to the federal government as respects their financial state and effectiveness of their drug program etc. I cannot see how anyone can make the claim that the sport has “an appreciation that integrity is important.”

Corruption is what has defined the game—not integrity; integrity is an illusion that the sport has consistently tried to sell to the public the same way it does hot dogs, beer and souvenir caps. It sells integrity the same way Disney tries to sell “magic” and “enchantment” but nobody deludes themselves into thinking that profit isn't the primary motivational directive of such a strategy.

Players who have serious criminal charges, who are accused of rape and spousal abuse, drunk driving and drug arrests just fade out of the game.

When their skills fade—they didn’t come up with the phrase “If you can hit a curveball you can get away with murder” because it was fun to say and rolled off the tongue. His statement would have more credibility if he had cited examples of players whose careers ended long before their productivity waned but the facts state otherwise: how many chances did Steve Howe, Daryl Strawberry and Sidney Ponson receive? This is far from a comprehensive list Let's see how Brian Giles career plays out.

Baseball made a serious mistake in the ‘90s by looking the other way while steroid abuse mutated its players, distorted game results and warped its record book.

It’s amazing that baseball is said to have made “a mistake” while Bonds is vilified and needs to be removed from the game. To me, this is no different than banning the Black Sox for life and putting Charles Comiskey into the Hall of Fame. Have we learned nothing from history? Barry Bonds uses steroids to make money and hopefully win a World Series from his improved performance. The New York Yankees strike every reference of steroids from the contract to Jason Giambi to make money and hopefully win a World Series from the team's improved performance. The owner skates and the player is banished. Plus ca change.

But the Mitchell Report, released a year ago, was a crystal-clear announcement that the sport was banishing its ethical ambiguity on the matter of performance-enhancing drugs. For this purpose, it was irrelevant that the report was incomplete and limited in scope. The Mitchell Report announced that Major League Baseball believed that steroid and HGH use was wrong, unacceptable, and sullied the game. It would condemn and embarrass any player found to violate this standard. Cheating was not cool, and cheaters were not welcome. The conduct was officially inconsistent with the values and best interests of the game (as it had, in fact, always been), and the owners, players, teams and fans were hereby expected to heed that fact.

No, this happened because Congress was breathing down its neck. The reason steroids gained such a foothold is that the government hadn’t gotten involved yet. As Craig Calcaterra outlined in his chapter in the THT Annual (that I hope Marshall reads at some point), the Mitchell Report was designed to “officially” end “the steroid era.” Steroids and HGH are still used by many because the tests are not comprehensive enough to catch all the cheats. The Mitchell Report is to baseball what the blanket is to Linus—something they can cling to for a measure of security that keeps problems at bay. As with Linus, the blanket does nothing regarding the difficulties of life but merely allows the person holding it to feel that it does—in the same way, the Mitchell Report allows MLB to think the steroid problem has been dealt with when it really hasn’t.

As to Bonds—never forget this one point: MLB never found its conscience about employing Barry Lamar Bonds until all the checks from the home run chase were cashed and Bonds had given services rendered for the money his contract dictated that he be paid. Only when all the revenue had been wrung out of Bonds’ talents and no member of the ownership cartel would have to swallow a nickel in losses before he became too obnoxious to employ.

Think about it: MLB allowed Bonds to break the record because of the money it made for the sport but now he has to be removed from the game because now that Bonds is a record holder he has become a symbol of why steroid use is wrong and needs to be exorcised from the sport for the sake of its integrity.

I’m sorry—I do not get it.

More to come—this will take some time and I’m going to have a difficult time reducing my rebuttal to one THT article.

Best Regards

John

The baseball ethicist: Episode 1--The Random Menace...

2008-12-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

Well, after having this article (Why Nobody Signed Barry Bonds) passed along to me multiple times (thanks to all that did so), I guess I should offer a comment or two since Mr. Marshall mentioned yours truly by name.

Obviously, I think it was collusion but I’m willing to change my mind if an independent arbitrator looks at the evidence and says that teams didn’t (collude).

I’m not that crazy about Barry Lamar—it is, as I’ve said too many times to mention, not about Bonds for me; it’s about collusion and hypocrisy.

I’ll probably do a rebuttal on THT in the New Year so this post can serves as its genesis. To state the obvious—I disagree but don’t expect a rip job or a snark-fest. He has a good-faith opinion that he has put some thought into and it will be treated as such and not the ill-informed, error-riddled vitriol we read in the media about Bonds that I love to drop the gloves when replying to it.

Marshall also discussed his article on Ball-Hype and I’ll address some of his points made there as well.

Probably my biggest difficulty with what he wrote was the implication that as a symbol, Bonds warranted different treatment than the multitude of steroid abusers received. Lady Justice is pictured as blindfolded for a reason—ideally she treats everyone the same. Further, when you turn people into symbols you dehumanize them and some of history’s greatest atrocities occurred when people became symbols of society’s ills and treated accordingly. In recent history we’ve seen what occurred within the United States regarding African Americans and Germany with Jews (did I just invoke Godwin’s Law?) when people became symbols of a given problem rather than, well…people.

The easiest way to inflict massive injustice on a person is to turn them into a symbol of a given scourge (of society)--after all, it's just a symbol...it's not like it is human being or anything, right? Plus, it serves a greater good does it not?

Not.

For true justice, the blindfold cannot be lifted for a nanosecond to see who is involved. Put another way—even Osama bin Laden deserves a fair trial. It may not be a popular stance or a particularly efficient one but then again, the expedient solution generally leaves a lot more problems in its wake.

Another implication is that the sport needs to move on from the steroid era.

Baseball also needs to move on from the spitball era but guess what?

Sadly, the genie is out of the bottle and to think that the game is now steroid-free (or close to it) is naïve—its use of detectable steroids is down and that’s about it. What Marshall is suggesting is that the game allows the public to think that the steroid era is over; to pretend that the game is now clean and pure when it is clearly not. What Marshall is saying is that Bonds is keeping MLB from creating an illusion it can sell to the public.

I cannot see how converting a man to a symbol so different rules can be applied to him in order to create a false front is somehow of benefit to anyone. Is he advocating that MLB be allowed to move on from a problem it never solved?

Who benefits from such a situation? What does that teach the public about values if that's the big issue?

On Ballhype, Marshall stated:

“A sport ignores its image, built by its stars, at great peril. Do you think the decline of pro boxing was accelerated by having a "champion" like Mike Tyson? At one time, boxing's peak, the heaveyweight champion was supposed to be a national hero and role model. Once that had been obliterated, the public interest in the sport waned.”

Boxing was on the wane long before Tyson—what eroded the sport’s popularity was Pay-Per-View. It used to be you could watch big bouts on free TV and it had a larger audience that created fans. When it took all of its big events out of the public eye it marginalized the sport and the next generation of fans were never cultivated. I used to be a big boxing fan but after a time there was little boxing on the tube and it was hard to follow; toss in the splintering of organizations where several different men could lay claim to a world title (WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO etc.) and it began to be even harder. A sports fan knows that the New York Giants are champions of their sport, as are the Detroit Red Wings, L.A. Lakers and of course the Philadelphia Phillies—the line is clearly defined but in boxing the era of “the champ” is over.

We follow sports and derive a satisfaction of determining the best among them but that beast no longer exists in the pugilistic world.

This is why boxing is where it is and not the fact that Mike Tyson once wore the belt.

Another point from Ballhype:

“Yes, lots of players have cheated, but the vast majority of players have not, and a cheating player who rises to the pinnacle of the sport like Bonds threatens to make cheating the norm rather than the exception.”

I’m not sure what to make of this statement—Bonds didn’t invent cheating; to take this point to its logical conclusion is that it appears Bonds should be made an example of because of his natural talent and work ethic. He should be penalized for being born with natural gifts and the willingness to fully develop (or over-develop if you will) them. Maybe I’m misinformed, but cheating is the norm—it’s just that the bulk of it occurs unnoticed and unremarked upon. At the same time, he has little difficulty with the barons of the sport cheating whether it’s defrauding municipalities of public dollars, the pre-1947 collusion against African Americans, the collusion under Peter Ueberroth, their complicity in the steroid scandal etc.

No sanction for these crimes—not even the flagship franchises' participation in them; is it O.K. for teams that reach the pinnacle of their sport to cheat but not players? Isn’t that a bit of a double standard—the best of management can cheat and participate in the steroid problem but not the player? No sanction for the Yankees for removing every mention of steroids from Jason Giambi’s contract so they could sign the best hitter on the market in order to try and win the World Series and increase revenues but at the same time Bonds deserves to be punished with extreme prejudice?

Marshall seems to be concerned about protecting a sanctity that the sport never had—he’s protecting a myth that doesn’t hold up to critical examination and taking the blindfold off of Lady Justice in order to accomplish that.

I cannot go along with such a stance.

Anyway—that’s a start; I will follow up with more as times goes on. There’s just too much to cover in one post or article.

The latest…

I’ve been negligent of late in posting my SMSN (Chin Music) links:

The 2008 Toronto Boo Jays part 1

(Part 2 should be up in a day or two.)

Great expectations

Best Regards

John

Happy blue tears...

2008-12-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

Where have you gone Bill Veeck? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

I have to admit—were I an executive of Rogers Communication I would absolutely cringe every time J.P. Ricciardi opens his mouth; I’m beginning to enjoy it as much as your average coroner does in opening a just exhumed casket from an eight year old grave that has been laying in groundwater.

I mean, it’s like a receptionist at a dentist’s office reassuring patients that not only is it going to hurt like hell, she hopes they had the foresight to put on Depends before the procedure. We know that the Blue Jays are going into Opening Day 2009 without A.J. Burnett, Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan plus the offense—that screamed that if ‘chicks dig the long ball’ there was going to be a nasty case of carpal tunnel syndrome afflicting the entire lineup—was not upgraded from last season’s slap-fest but is it necessary to remind us that the Jays are finished with next year’s roster while the Yankees are blowing close to a half-billion on the roster while the AL champs Tampa Bay Rays and two-time former world champ Boston Red Sox are looking for berths in October?

Wow—that was some kind of impressive run-on sentence eh?

But I digress … even when I can’t be bothered to catch a breath.

I’m amazed, but not in a good way, about how Ricciardi feels that Adam Dunn’s not having a passion for baseball is such a drawback yet is trying to inspire the same emotion among the Blue Jays’ fan base.

What precisely are they selling next year?

The fans have had high expectations since Ricciardi came on board and that has been heightened since year five of his five year plan has come and gone. The last three years have been exercises in “we would have won if [insert reason/excuse/general whining] hadn’t happened…” and even having the best pitching and (among the) defense in baseball wasn’t enough to reach 90 wins and now that the Rays have conclusively proven that it’s possible to best the economic behemoths in New York and Boston Toronto fans are wondering when it’s their turn.

It’s good to bear in mind that when the Jays were granted an expansion franchise in 1977 they weren’t allowed to participate in the re-entry free agent draft (where you acquired the superstar talent), drafted last in the amateur draft and didn’t receive national TV money in that span. On top of all that, unlike recent expansion teams, they didn’t have the opportunity to build a farm system before beginning play. It took seven years (1983) to build an 89-win club (something Ricciardi has yet to accomplish—in 1983 and 1984 89 wins would have won the AL West handily) and nine years to reach the post season.

Ricciardi is telling us that year nine might be, if things break right, for the Blue Jays to accomplish the same thing with none of the restrictions that they had back when disco was king.

When you consider that only the hapless Kansas City Royals are the only other AL team since the strike not to find their way into the post season it is hard not to understand why the fan base may start becoming disenchanted.

Despite this restlessness, when the fans need hope, reassurance and something to get excited about for 2009 Ricciardi goes out of his way to keep expectations low. Just how does this help sell tickets? I mean, can you imagine trying to sell season’s tickets packages to fans that follow the Jays’ offseason moves or lack of same?

At the very least, a savvy GM. (or front office) would be hyping the kids: Travis Snider, Adam Lind, David Purcey, Davis and Rickey Romero, Brett Cecil, Brad Mills, Brian Jeroloman, J.P. Arencibia etc. telling us that they’re ready, that these are the guys that will lead the team to the Promised Land against the big bad AL East and remind them early, often and repeatedly that this was how the Rays pulled it off.

Instead, we get to hear the excuses of October several months early.

Last year, a bunch of radio stations dropped carrying Blue Jays games—are J.P.’s comments going to help add radio affiliates? Sponsors are dropping the Blue Jays and this is going to convince new ones to come on board? These entities like winners, not quitters, not excuse makers, not promotional vehicles for Rogers Communication.

I just do not get it.

I honestly think that the Blue Jays will not make it under Ricciardi—he doesn’t have a winner’s mentality; he’s too busy looking to the future and excusing the moment to do what is necessary to succeed in the present. The only thing he does in the here and now is tell us why it (the current roster) is not going to the post season and what moves will not be made to change that.

I pray Paul Beeston realizes this—if they are punting on 2009 then it’s pretty obvious very few believe that Ricciardi is the man to accomplish something that he has been unable to do in the previous eight years. They need someone who can take the team to the next level and J.P. is content with the present one; always being a year away, having a promising future but never having to lay it on the line and be defined as a winner or a loser. Right now, he tries to portray himself as unlucky—therefore unable to be in that position where that definition can be made.

That of itself is a guarantee that playoff baseball will happen under Ricciardi—he had a window of opportunity in 2008 and did his level best to avoid having to commit to it. I think we’ve seen enough.

Best Regards

John

Pinstripe peril produce purple snits!!!

2008-12-24T12:47:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, stack up the canned goods and fresh water, head to the underground bunker and load the assault rifles for truly the apocalypse is nigh. The New York Yankees are hogging all the toys again!

I scarcely know where to start.

O.K., to begin with; let’s look objectively at what the Yankees gained this offseason:

Thus far, it appears that C.C. Sabathia replaces Andy Pettitte in the rotation. Now, don’t forget that Sabathia’s heroics occurred in the NL—before the trade to Milwaukee Sabathia was making most of his starts pitching in the AL Central. In 2008, he posted a 3.83 ERA (116 ERA+) and he faced the A’s three times, the Royals three times and made five other starts against poor offensive teams. That’s 11 of 18 starts he made before the trade against inferior clubs—it was admittedly a bit of a fall off from 2007. However, he made no starts against the Red Sox, Yankees or Rays before being shipped across league lines.

Sabathia is a 1-8, 6.18 ERA against the Yankees lifetime so he’s protected against that. He’s 2-4, 3.91 against the Red Sox, pitched well against the Rays although he did not face them in 2008 and has had little difficulty against Toronto (weak offensively the last two seasons) and Baltimore (‘nuf said).

Last year, Andy Pettitte logged 204 innings with a 98 ERA+ (4.54 ERA) making 13 starts within the division.

In short, the Yankees made an upgrade here but it’s not like they went from replacement level to what C.C. did in Milwaukee. Bear in mind that this will not be the Sabathia we’ll see in the Bronx—he is a career 121 ERA+ starter that toiled in what has often been a weak division. Oddly enough—the most comparable to him statistically at this point of his career is Freddy Garcia. Obviously he is better than Garcia but it is good to remember that Sabathia’s biggest asset is his durability and that he delivers a lot of quality innings but nobody is talking “future Hall of Famer” here.

A.J. Burnett replaces Mike Mussina: last season Burnett threw 221.3 innings at a 105 ERA+ (4.07 ERA), Mussina tossed 200.3 IP for an ERA+ of 132 (3.37 ERA)—now over his 18 seasons Mussina has averaged 198 innings with 11 seasons over 200 yet bear in mind that “Moose” has actually had 16 162-game seasons due to work stoppages so he has actually had 200 innings campaigns in almost 70%of his career. A.J. has averaged 137 innings per season with three of 10 full (seasons) of over 200 IP and as we’ve discussed before, Burnett has never had back-to-back 180-inning campaigns while Mussina’s season average is 198! A.J.’s 200 inning seasons traditionally translate into injury shortened ones immediately after; simply put Burnett will need to enjoy one his better seasons to match what Mussina did in 2008.

So, as far as 2009 goes it’s probably a bit of a downgrade.

Mark Teixeira is a huge boost from Jason Giambi defensively but offensively Teixeira’s last three seasons (as stated) consisted of OPS+ of 126, 150 and 151 with 96 HR while Giambi was 148, 108 and 126 slugging with 83 jacks—a pretty good upgrade but at a position of minimal defensive importance.

Right now, when you consider how the offensive core will be a year older, the defense remains poor and the middle relief is still iffy and the end of the rotation still has question marks it’s hard to see how this $424 million spending spree has turned the pinstripes from a third place team to a world champion. I think the Yankees will be better over the long haul with the trio but I don’t see a big difference between the 2008 and 2009 clubs.

I’m thinking the panic is a wee bit overblown.

At any rate, it is hard to ignore that the advantage the Yankees enjoy is now on bold display. Right now, J.P. Ricciardi is trying to ensure that there are a lot of available seats at the Rogers Centre for 2009 with his proclamations that it’s never too early to fire up the “wait ‘til next year” mantras or make a concession speech.

Ricciardi is a lousy salesman—I mean, here are your division rivals reloading in a big way and he chooses this opportunity to let the fan base know that, as a franchise, they’re not even going to try? Folks are speculating that there could be significant bargains to be had, that some quality players could be available without any long term commitments as free agents might simply wait for a year or two before inking a long term deal but the Jays are saying that they’re not even willing to take advantage of a potential discount special?

I really think that Ricciardi has been assured that he will be employed until his contract expires so he is not going to sweat a mediocre 2009 season.

But I digress—I’ll save my self-loathing as a Blue Jays’ fan for another post.

Getting back to the Bombers’ operating on another plane financially is having a lot of folks wanting to see a salary cap brought into the sport.

While I’m not a fan of caps for a lot of reasons, I do think it is inevitable and all the more so now that the MLBPA has fallen so far and the vast majority of teams are simply part of larger corporate portfolios and can withstand a stoppage until the players cave. I think this offseason will splinter the players even more in that we’ll see the elite get their money as we have already witnessed but a lot of lesser free agents are going to see a lot less and the rank-and-file player is simply not going to sacrifice just so the top guys can go to the Yankees for top dollar because that is to what it all ultimately boils down.

If you’re a superstar free agent your best bet is the New York Yankees—they have close to unlimited resources and are willing to spend it. There are a small minority of teams that are also willing to spend big but as A.J. Burnett stated "Whether you love them or hate them, everybody wants to be a Yankee." It’s not because everybody dream of playing in pinstripes but simply that if the Bronx Bombers decide that they want you as part of the team they will make you very wealthy in a way that no other team is prepared.

So, in effect, why would your average player forgo a year (or more) of his earnings in a career that is so uncertain just so top talent can be paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the AL franchise in New York?

Further, the biggest problem isn’t the Yankees’ spending as it is the lack of investment by other clubs. The Steinbrenner’s are nowhere near the wealthiest member of the ownership cartel. Getting back to the Blue Jays for a moment, it’s not that Rogers Communication cannot increase payroll, it’s that they choose not to do so.

I mean, to me, the what the Yankees are doing is far less reprehensible than the fact that what the Bronx Bombers spend in luxury taxes and revenue sharing is more than what teams like the Marlins spend in total payroll. It is unconscionable for a club to spend less on the major league roster than they receive in revenue sharing.

Ultimately, while Bud Selig gives lip service to competitive balance and parity, the primary motivational directive is and always has been profits. That being the case, the money flows better when the big market teams are good and this system helps make it happen and further, if Selig had his utopia of 100 % revenue sharing and a hard salary cap teams would have no reason to hit up municipalities for hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate welfare for their stadium scams.

An “unfair” system is used as the reason for public support and if the league had the aforementioned utopia how can a team say they need a new stadium to be competitive if their revenues and expenses are pre-set due to sharing and a cap?

The conclusion of the matter is this: there is way too much hysteria over what the Yankees are doing—they haven’t won a World Series since 2000 despite their spending going meta. Always remember this one fact: it’s not that teams cannot spend more for the most part, it’s that they will not. I, for one, would love to have the Jays owned by a group so committed to putting a winning product on the field. The Yankees have massive revenues but at least they spend it and the fans know that even though they’re paying more, at least the franchise is making sure they get full value for the money spent.

Isn’t that what your typical consumer wants with the businesses with whom they deal?

Best Regards

John

Manu, manu, manu, oh shi…

2008-12-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

I wonder if the mainstream media knows that Scott Boras needs them more than they need him.

I mean, I know how hard it is sometimes to put a story together and we’re always grateful to our sources that help us fill out columns with something resembling substance. I imagine that a lot in the press have a love-hate type relationship with the man in that they hate what he does and they must realize at some level they’re being used but at the same time he’s always willing to talk and provide information (*cough* bold-faced lies *cough*).

I’m guessing it’s a lot like a farmer’s relationship with manure--they know what it is and it stinks and they feel dirty after dealing with it and crave a long hot shower afterward but they know it helps crops grow tall. In the same manner speaking with Boras creates more or less the same sensations and sentiment but he does help the column inches grow.

Make no mistake though; Boras plays the media like an impresario to enrich his stable of players. I mean, how many of the following headlines this month is the result of a conversation with the agent or a team sending a message to him? We’ll limit ourselves to one player: Mark Teixeira…

Hard to imagine Teixeira in D.C., no matter the price (Boras: “You guys want Teixeira? Think A-Rod money!”)

Red Sox a finalist for Teixeira (Boras: “Hey, Mr. Steinbrenner--look what your main rivals are gonna do; shouldn't you do something to stop them?”)

Orioles not planning to increase offer to Teixeira (Message to Boras: “Have you lost your mind? We have 24 other guys that are gonna want to be paid too!”)

YANKS TO GO AFTER MANNY, TEIXEIRA (Boras: “Memo to the teams I've been discussing these two with; your offers are too low and it's time to get stupid!”)

Mark Teixeira, the One That Got Away From the Red Sox (Boras: “Hello Misters Henry and Epstein, Mark thinks he'd look just dashing in pinstripes, what do you think?”)

For Sox, Mark Teixeira deal would be 2nd to none (Boras: “Yes, that's a generous offer, even an ridiculously obscene one considering my client's talents but it's still way too low. Try digging a little deeper. You wouldn't want me to say that Teixeira is now ready to hear 'serious offers' now would you?”)

Sources: Teixeira to Orioles unlikely (Boras: “Look losers, if you want Teixeira to play in the purgatory of the AL East, we demand 50% of the payroll.”)

Other baseball advocate are encouraging the Red Sox to go nuclear (Boras: “Big Papi is slowing down and you don't have to pay Manny his $20 million so why not use that as a starting point in negotiations?”)

Sources: BoSox close to getting Teixeira (Boras: “Uh, Mr. Steinbrenner, you need a first baseman, I need an obscene commission--do I have to draw you a map?”)

Teixeira will get his payday, but is he really worth it? (Message to Boras: “The real world: spend a week there some time.”)

For Red Sox and Teixeira, Sound and Fury Signify Bluffing (Message to Boras: “We may print money here in Boston but you can't have all of it.”)

Sources: Sox still in Teixeira hunt (Boras: “Well, I'm off to talk to Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner.”)

Teixeira back in talks with Yankees, Angels (Boras: “I know you print money in Boston and we only want 95% of it.”)

…and so it goes.

In one story it states that Teixeira’s ‘imminent’ deal with the Red Sox was about eight years averaging $23 million per. I can almost guarantee that Boras was the origin of that. Heck, I’m willing to bet that any story mentioning a specific dollar figure is from Boras--it’s his way of creating, or hoping to create, a sense of urgency and frantic bidding where the baseline is already set high. Even before teams could offer money to other clubs’ free agents, Boras informed the press that the market for Teixeira was “aggressive” in effect telling the big spenders that, while it’s against the rules to talk money before a certain date, a lot of teams have given ol’ Scotty boy the nudge-nudge, wink-wink that they’re willing to give their souls, their firstborn, their daughter’s virtue and close to a half billion dollars as an opening bid for the greatest first baseman to hit the market since Will Clark (OPS+ for his age 26-28 seasons: 125, 154, 150; Teixeira: 126, 150, 151 although Clark didn‘t become a free agent until he was 29 but was ever bit as slick a defender).

I’m guessing one of two things is occurring: one, Boras has a first class pigeon that he’s slowly reeling in a la Tom Hicks and has them bidding against himself and this is his way of “assuring” le grand surgeon that he is involved in an auction for the ages. The other possibility is that things aren’t going well in the marketplace and nobody is buying his spiel since Teixeira is no better than Will Clark and not as good an offensive player as Jim Thome, Carlos Delgado and Fred McGriff at the same age and greatly inferior to Frank Thomas as a hitter and Jeff Bagwell as an all around first sacker and are making offers accordingly. Therefore Boras is simply trying to pump up his client’s value using every trick he has at his disposal.

Regardless, it would be a lot more fun if the fourth estate simply decided not to use Boras as a source or even better, were perfectly honest about what he planted:

"Boras, frustrated because he can’t get any of the large revenue teams to commit his hoped for 8-10 year $200+ million deal has informed The Post that he has a meeting scheduled with the Yankees’ brass and that the Red Sox have implied in an earlier discussion with the agent that they’re willing to make an offer in the nine year/$207 million range even though Theo Epstein has yet to speak to John Henry about how much there is in the budget available for a deal with Teixeira.

Since teams cannot discuss contract offers with other teams, Boras is hoping that the bogus offer he has ‘leaked’ to The Post from the Red Sox will be viewed as the genuine article by GM Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner and the Bronx Bombers will react accordingly. Boras hopes to be able to take time out of his busy schedule for a pilgrimage to Delphi. “I admire, the Delphians…” the disgruntled agent said “…they had the courage to kill Aesop and as well they should. Were he alive today I would do him in myself. As it is, I’ll simply have to be satisfied with urinating on [Aesop’s] grave."

That would be awesome.

Best Regards

John

The yelling prose of Teixeira...

2008-12-17T10:43:00.000-08:00

What’s all the fuss?

Seriously?

Mark Teixeira is a pretty good ballplayer--his career OPS+ is 134, he’s good for 30 taters and 100 RBI, knows the value of a base on balls and is a pretty slick gloveman for a first sacker. Here are his last three seasons from age 26-28:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  OPS+
.282   .371   .514    99    33   110  126
.306   .400   .563    86    30   105  150
.308   .410   .552   102    33   121  151

Pretty solid. Yet hardly anything that would indicate that he’s the second coming of anything yet Scott Boras has teams soiling themselves in anticipation of landing him for the next eight years at $20 million annually at the minimum. To put his numbers into some kind of perspective, let’s see how some other recent first basemen fared at the same age:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  OPS+
.292   .385   .592    94    38   115  150
.272   .377   .571   113    44   134  137
.344   .470   .664   115    41   137  181

Any guesses? Would you rather have Teixeira or Carlos Delgado? Let’s look at another example:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  OPS+
.286   .423   .579   104    40   102  156
.293   .413   .584    89    30    85  153
.277   .426   .540   101    33   108  141

Again, a superior offensive force but not as good defensively. Yet, that was Jim Thome at the same age. Now to really blow your minds:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  OPS+
.353   .487   .729   106    38   101  211
.308   .454   .606   102    40   111  179
.349   .459   .626   110    40   134  178

Not even close--but those were “The Big Hurt” Frank Thomas’s totals for his age 26-28 and guess what? His age 26 and 27 seasons were shortened by the strike of 1994-95 yet still put up better counting numbers than Teixeira. One more:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  OPS+
.368   .451   .750   104    39   116  213
.290   .399   .496    88    21    87  142
.315   .451   .570   111    31   120  178

O.K. his age 27 season might not look so hot, but bear in mind that like Thomas, Jeff Bagwell’s age 26 and 27 seasons were likewise strike shortened. He was every bit as good a defender as Teixeira plus he was a better base stealer going 30-30 on a couple of occasions.

Were any of these guys lusted after the way Teixeira is right now? We get a good idea of how effective the Scott Boras hype machine is; nobody would’ve thought of dropping the years and dough on the four players cited above for 8-10 years even though Teixeira is probably the worst offensive player of the bunch.

That glove must be really special though eh?

I think whatever team ponies up for him will experience the truth of “the winner‘s curse” in that once his offense starts to decline the club will be left with a roided up version of Lyle Overbay (I’m not saying Teixeira uses steroids, I’m just saying that if Overbay was a user his offense would likely be better plus he’s a pretty slick gloveman himself).

As always, I’m rooting against Scott Boras and I’ve given up hope that teams will see Teixeira for what he really is and not what Boras portrays him to be; I’m nowhere near ready to celebrate the reduced contracts that may be given to his other big clients (Manny Ramirez and Derek Lowe) since it’s far too early to say that they won’t get vastly overvalued deals from some sucker.

We should never lose sight of what Boras did for Magglio Ordonez--he was coming off knee surgery, feuded with the White Sox front office and played just 52 games in 2004 at age 30 batting .292/.351/.485 (114 OPS+) and looked to be only good for a one-year deal to re-establish his market value. Then out of nowhere in the first week of February word came out that the Detroit Tigers were giving him a five year/$75 million deal.

I’m looking forward to Boras’s decline and fall but there’s too much offseason remaining for me to hope that he’s badly misread the market and being fired by a couple more of his clients. Teams are too desperate for starting pitching for Lowe not to land a deal not unlike A.J. Burnett’s and if Boras can corner Hank Steinbrenner one-on-one anything can happen.

He’ll blow it big time one day--I’m just not sure that this will be the year.

Best Regards

John

A little perspective...

2008-12-17T09:38:00.000-08:00

To begin with, I really hope this isn‘t true; as reported by the San Diego Union Tribune…

The suit, filed in San Diego Superior Court, states the abuse began in 2002. It accuses Giles of “hitting and slapping plaintiff in the face; pushing plaintiff; shaking plaintiff; kicking plaintiff; hitting plaintiff in the chest; knocking plaintiff to the floor, battering plaintiff twice when she was pregnant with the parties' child, causing plaintiff to suffer a miscarriage.”

Obviously Brian Giles deserves his day in court and is fully entitled to the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. If it’s true, it is truly a heinous act.

What is going to drive me crazy if it is true will be people’s reaction to it. Oh sure, most will stand up and unequivocally condemn the cowardly act (as well they should) and insist that the full weight of the law be brought to bear on Giles.

However, the vitriol and condemnation by the fans and media will not reach the levels given to Barry Bonds.

Even worse, most will be completely oblivious to the disconnect in their thinking.

The press will not stand up and declare that employing Giles would be bad for business and teams will not worry about clubhouse issues should Giles be employed by their team. There will be no concerns about a consumer backlash or ticket sales and it will not be said that a club would be “selling their souls” by giving him work.

A team will be more concerned about whether he can still be effective in the outfield or if he can rediscover his 20 HR power or if he is still capable of batting .300 and drawing 80-100 walks. Rest assured that he will continue to find work as long as he’s productive and while the fourth estate may lob the odd rock in his direction, they’ll be more concerned with ripping Bonds a new one when he is again in the news cycle with his upcoming trial and later the arbitration hearing regarding MLB potential collusion against him.

Oh yeah, screw the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing for Barry Lamar since as I have been informed all too many times in my e-mail “OMG…your such a idiot of course he‘s guilty look at teh size of his head!!1!!”

Of course, it’s not like the media has given the fans the straight dope on Bonds. If you don’t believe me, look at how many times a story has Bonds saying “whatever dude” to the grand jury or a government prosecutor. It makes Bonds sound surly, arrogant and completely disrespectful to the Grand Jury and/or prosecutor but guess what? It’s completely bogus. Here is the actual context of his “whatever dude” remark:

...everyone tries to give me everything. You get companies that provide us with more junk to try than anything ... I was fatigued, tired, just needed recovery you know. And this guy says: ‘Try this cream, try this cream.' And Greg came to the ballpark and said, you know: ‘This will help you recover,' and he rubbed some cream on my arm, like, some lotion type stuff, and like, some lotion type stuff, and like, gave me some flax seed oil, that's what he called it, called it some flax seed oil man. It's like "Whatever dude." And I was at the ballpark, whatever, I don't care. What's lotion going to do to me? How many times have I heard that: "This is going to rub into you and work." Let him be happy. We're friends. You know? [bolding and italics mine]

The “whatever dude” is what he testified he said to Anderson and was not directed at anybody in the grand jury room. Sure, he’s a surly, arrogant cuss but it does illustrate that the media isn’t above mangling the facts to make him look as evil as possible.

Plus, it’s exactly what people want to hear--they don’t want the truth, they just want to hear the spoiled rich ballplayer get skewered.

That’s what I find so frustrating. I’m not writing this in defense of Bonds but rather how maddening the hypocrisy of it all is; the fact that Barry Bonds isn’t unique--he’s a PED using athlete with an attitude problem. The only thing unique about him is that none of the others that fit that description have hit 762 HR.

There have been a lot of players that have done what Giles is being accused of; there are a lot of players that have done far worse than what Barry Bonds is accused of; there are bigger jerks out there and bona fide felons in MLB. The sport of itself has raped communities (collectively) of billions upon billions of dollars that should have been used for essential services for children, the sick and the elderly.

Yet folks decide to use up their vitriol on Barry Lamar Bonds--that he is the evil that needs to be purged from the sport so that it might regain a sanctity it never had and they base their opinion on what sources tell them and that source distorts the truth on this and many other issues. Make no mistake, the aforementioned billions upon billions of dollars taken out of your pocket and given with no strings attached to the feudal lords of baseball would not have happened had the media been truthful about what was transpiring. Instead they faithfully disseminated the propaganda given them by MLB without any critical analysis. The steroid scandal that causes so many to loath Barry Lamar Bonds might not have taken the shape it did had the press not lied for years that the sport didn’t have a drug problem.

Barry Bonds may be a first class jerk but it doesn’t speak well of us if we view him as the biggest demon that needs to be exorcised from MLB.

Best Regards

John

DOA.J.?

2008-12-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Tell me about a guy having this for a season:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  SB
.303   .413   .574   120    41   123  21

Now, what do you think about someone doing that for five straight years?

In those five seasons he was an All Star, won a pair of MVP, and three times was given the Silver Slugger for being the best hitter at his position.

What would you think if some of the fans of the team for which he plays viewed this player with a degree of disappointment? Probably the first thing that would come to mind is what would cause that level of performance to be viewed in such a manner?

Well, one theory might be how well he played up to that point in time--maybe he regressed. So, let’s take a look at the previous eight full seasons this man played in the big leagues. He averaged:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  SB
.311   .387   .590   124    42   121  21

Pretty consistent if you ask me--13 straight seasons of inner circle Hall of Fame greatness.

Then why are some of the fans of his current team down on such a prodigious talent?

Ever hear the expression about the importance of first impressions? Here’s a look at his first season with his current club:


 AVG    OBP    SLG  Runs    HR   RBI  SB
.286   .375   .512   112    36   106  28

That’s still a pretty good season by anybody’s reckoning. Let’s add a visual:

Slappy McBluelips begins...

Ah yes…Alex Rodriguez.

Yes, to some, A-Rod has never lived down 2004; the poor-for-him season and the final four games of the ALCS against the despised Boston Red Sox. Had the Yankees won that series and Rodriguez went on to win World Series MVP chances are good that subsequent post season flops were simply sample size and that acquiring Rodriguez would rank up there with the acquisition of George Herman Ruth.

Obviously, the more baseball savvy members of the Yankee fan base recognize that he’s a good guy to have on the ol’ 25-man roster even if they’re not enamoured with his persona, his agent or the other red herrings that make ones long for the misty watered coloured memories of Scott Brosius.

If you’re a hired gun of the New York Yankees you will not be given the grace and the allowances made for any shortcomings that are enjoyed by the likes of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera--homegrown Yankee lifers all. Although Andy Pettitte had three years away from the Bronx, he could count on more slack than Mike Mussina. The bottom line is that if you’re an interloper pulling down the big bucks you’d better produce from Day One or else. Jason Giambi batted .314/.435/.598 with 41 HR while reaching the rare trifecta of 100+ in the runs/RBI/BB and followed that up with a .357/.526/.571 performance in a losing effort in the ALDS in his inaugural season wearing the pinstripes and was set. As long as he continued to hit he would be forgiven in the whole BALCO scandal that caused so much angst. 2004 would not be held against him as he posted OPS+ of 161 and 148 the years following his part in the mess.

What will the next five years hold for A.J. Burnett?

As will be discussed in more detail in this week’s upcoming SMSN column, his tenure and happiness in pinstripes will be decided in year one of the deal--succeed and he’s gold, fail and he hears the name Ed Whitson, get hurt and Carl Pavano will be invoked.

It’s not fair and the comparisons are bogus but that is the reality of the situation and the current circumstances coming into 2009 do not bode well for A.J. Burnett. Every season he has tossed 200+ innings have been followed by a pair of injury shortened campaigns. The Yankees’ problems last year had as much to do with the offense as it did the pitching and bullpen leading up to Mo Rivera--areas that haven’t been addressed as of yet.

Burnett will not have the stellar defense behind him in New York that he did in Toronto and his occasionally erratic command (3.71 B/9; 14 starts in 2007-08 with four or more walks) will be more of a problem since more balls in play will become hits rather than outs and double plays. He will need more pitches to get through more innings than he did the last two seasons.

If he wants to throw 200 quality innings next season the circumstances do not bode well for A.J. He has yet to throw 200 (yet alone 180) innings in back-to-back seasons. A poor debut in the Bronx might mean his five year deal could be a five year sentence.

He has the stuff to succeed there--he is a superb pitcher when healthy however it takes more than talent to thrive with the Yankees as history attests. Hopefully he can pull it off because as much as I want to see the Yankees lose, I hate to see talented players not fulfill their potential since watching them is what makes baseball fun.

Best Regards

John

Blame J.P. not A.J....

2008-12-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

I really hope the Toronto media and the fans cut A.J. Burnett some slack.

I mean, here were the man’s choices--go to a team that last season had one of the best pitching staffs and defenses in baseball yet did nothing (yes, Brad Wilkerson, Kevin Mench and Jose Bautista qualify as that) all season to upgrade the one aspect of the club that needed a boost to take the next step, have spent the following offseason informing anyone within hearing distance that the organization--barring all the breaks falling their way--is taking a mulligan in 2009 and is already pimping the 2010 team and offered four years at possibly $13-14 million per that went to Las Vegas and secured the services of Matt Clement.

The other option was to go to a team that offered five years averaging $16.5 million per annum had already signed the biggest bauble on the free agent market in C.C. Sabathia and have signalled that they’re nowhere near finished adding to the roster because they’re opening a new stadium and annually have the mindset that anything short of a ring is a failed season.

One team is committed to winning right now, the other speaks about some indefinite future time when they’ll make a run for the roses but under the current regime has never said ‘Now we go for it.’ One team makes excuses, the other one accepts none.

Don’t forget, after the trial of Barry Bonds there will be an arbitration hearing about whether or not MLB colluded against Bonds and if indeed baseball (and by extension the Jays) are guilty then potentially the final piece of the puzzle was out there for the entirety of 2008 at the cost of no players and the pro-rated major league minimum and Toronto chose losing to be part of a conspiracy. Yes, the Yankees are equally guilty but among the two teams which one is loading up for a post season run?

If I have any fire in my belly and want to pitch in October--the choice is a no-brainer; the money is gravy.

What has to be remembered is that a major league career is a fragile and finite thing…especially for a pitcher. Each time they take the mound they run the risk of throwing their final pitch. Tomorrow never comes in a lot of cases and these athletes must live in the present and get what they can while they still can be it money or championship dreams. The Toronto Blue Jays have a future--they will still be around in 2010, 2011, 2012 etc. and they may even end up in the playoffs again at some point.

Will A.J. Burnett still be throwing a baseball in the major leagues in 2010? 2011? 2012?

Who knows?

The New York Yankees offered A.J. the present: $82.5 million and a de facto guarantee that the club has every intention of doing everything in its power to win the World Series in 2009. The Toronto Blue Jays offered almost $30 million less and said “Hey, things might be a lot better in 2010…maybe.”

C’mon.

The New York Yankees have reached the post season 13 times since the Jays were last there.

I can almost guarantee that if Burnett solicited Roy Halladay’s advice on what to do that he would’ve told A.J. to not be an idiot and sign the Yankees’ offer before they changed their mind. The Bronx Bombers offered him the ballplayer’s dream: a generous contract on a team obsessed with World Series rings.

What could the Blue Jays offer to compete with that?

For those of you that decry Burnett’s lack of loyalty just remember this: our loyalty to him would have vanished as soon as his considerable skills begin to leave him. It’s a two-way street.

So…Godspeed A.J. I wish you nothing but the very best for you at your new address save for hoping that the Jays kick your butt every time the two teams play one another.

For more on this, here is a recent SMSN column on the subject.

Best Regards

John

Wallglowers....

2008-12-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

Ugh … five years/$80 million for A.J. Burnett?

At least that is what Gerry Fraley is reporting.

As we stated earlier today, this needs to be taken with a degree of caution since John Deere and Massey-Ferguson may as well have held trade shows in Las Vegas to demonstrate the effectiveness of their manure spreaders.

On the bright side, Bud Selig’s head must be near critical mass by now; first he spoke at the G.M. meetings (through a video feed), then he had Paul Volcker address the owners and other executives regarding the economy and, despite a slow start, it appears not to have slowed teams down a whit. First C.C. Sabathia signs a record deal for pitchers and wrung an extra year and $21 million (plus an opt out) from of the New York Yankees without anyone else being close to the Bombers original six year/$140 million package, then Derek Lowe is reportedly getting a shorter version of the contract the Giants gave to Barry Zito as the pinstripers are seemingly close to a four year pact averaging somewhere between $17-18 million.

Argh…I hate it when Scott Boras wins.

Well, I hope that the Yankees up their offer to Burnett--may as well land the trifecta of top starters.

Sure it’ll reek to follow the Blue Jays next year but at least I can enjoy a bit of schadenfreude in about three years when the Bronx Bombers may have close to $60 million tied up in 3/5 of their rotation and Lowe is old, Burnett is out and C.C. will have the infield orbiting his mid-section with nothing due to come up in the farm system until 2015.

In the short term I can take a degree of solace in knowing that Brian Cashman will have as much to do in the amateur draft as J.P. Ricciardi does right now in Vegas.

If money is so tight for the Blue Jays, why didn’t they save a few bucks and keep Ricciardi at home? Heck, J.P. himself said "Personally, I think (the winter meetings) are kind of antiquated," Toronto Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi said. "There's so much communication that's done (other ways). If we decided we were going to change it one year, it wouldn't bother me." (Hat tip to the Drunks)

That’s not to be taken seriously but it’s really frustrating to hear what other teams are doing in Vegas and having to listen to what Ricciardi isn’t doing there.

Still, there might be some wisdom in what Ricciardi says about the Winter Meetings; Scott Boras for one revels in that environment since it makes it easier for him to play one club off the other with all the decision makers in one place. All he has to do is take an offer, go a few doors down and ask the other interested team if they’re willing to top it.

It would certainly make bidding wars more logistically difficult.

The thing is, if the Jays’ attendance takes a significant dip in 2009 they only have themselves to blame. Without a doubt, Ricciardi and Co. have been an absolute buzz-kill to the fan base; they’re doing everything in their power to make sure that the fans approach next season with a profound sense of dread and hopelessness.

It would be like Rogers Communication putting out ads informing consumers what their products cannot do and pointing out why the competition’s product is so much more desirable.

One person that has been conspicuously silent through all this is Cito Gaston. I’m guessing he wants to be a good company man but I cannot think he is happy with all this industrial strength inertia.

One would think that at the very least the organization would be extolling the wonders of Travis Snider, David Purcey, Brett Cecil, Davis and Ricky Romero etc. Why not let it be known that the future is now and the kiddie corps will dazzle us as they go mano a mano against the big bad AL East?

Right now, it’s hard not to get the feeling that the Toronto Blue Jays are marketing 2009 as “Come watch our bums get a good kicking.”

This is salesmanship? I would love to hear the sales pitch the club is going to give Roy Halladay to stay onboard. If he leaves for greener pastures I will personally take to task any writer that blames Halladay, greed, disloyalty or any other such nonsense for his moving on. If the Jays are not committed to winning then why should a winning athlete commit to them? Doc has given the team his very best--can the organization say the same thing to Halladay?

Other stuff…

The BBWAA just added four internet writers: Will Carroll and Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus and Rob Neyer and Keith Law of ESPN.com. Congrats to all!
My latest offering at SMSN Sports is Against his will? where I wonder if the long arm of the MLBPA played a role in the Yankees acquiring C.C. Sabathia. One of my favourite parts of my weekly column is waiting to see what my boss Matt Parkinson has planned for the photo, caption, and lead-in for the article. When you check it out (and any earlier pieces) be sure to see what Mr. Parkinson has cooked up. He's as demented as I am and that ain't easy.
Just some props for The Drunks for their tireless coverage and takes on the Winter Meetings; it has been an ordeal as a Jays' fan but at least I know I am not suffering alone.
It's nice to see Joe Gordon finally take his rightful place in baseball's Hall of Fame. I have been stumping for Flash for almost a decade now. I did a post at my previous blog about Gordon's worthiness. Hopefully that opens the door for Bobby Grich but it's a real shame Ron Santo was again excluded--c'mon guys...enough already. Other Hall of Fame wishes for this year include Tim Raines, Bert Blyleven, Rickey Henderson, Alan Trammell and Andre Dawson.

Best Regards

John

A Boras hole?...

2008-12-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

Those of you that have subjected yourselves to my drivel over the years (some would call you readers, others would classify you as masochists) it would not be unfair to characterize Scott Boras as a guy of whom I am not particularly fond.

Yes, I generally am supportive of the players' side of most issues and feel they’re entitled to every blessed dollar they can get for their talents (I mean--are we any different? Do we not want the most money somebody is willing to pay for our abilities?) but I do think there are a right way and a wrong way to go about it.

Despite pushing 44, I have not lost my naïveté that the end does not justify the means and I feel there is value in turning the other cheek; just because somebody is a skunk of a human being doesn’t mean that it gives me license to do likewise. If somebody treats me like dirt, I do not think it gives me free rein to act in the same manner. It’s a variation of the saying about never arguing with an idiot since they’ll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

But I digress--it’s what I’m best at.

It should be noted though that not cheering for Scott Boras should not be equated with cheering for the men that wear argyle and not stirrup socks with their pinstripes.

Yeah, yeah, there is a point to this stream-of-consciousness monologue.

Tim Brown reports on Yahoo Sports that the market for Manny Ramirez is light according to a lot of executives.

Obviously, I take everything coming from the Winter Meetings with a major grain of salt. Among the 12 labours of Hercules was the cleaning of the Augean Stables in one day. Well, only a day in the Winter Meetings would require an equitable amount of male bovine manure handling and any information emanating from there should be viewed through that messy, stinky prism.

Bottom line, the market for Ramirez may be red hot but everybody is playing their hands close to the vest. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if some agents and executives spread misinformation just for the fun of it just to see the mileage it receives. It is said that a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth even gets its shoes tied and we see evidence of this on an hourly basis.

However, there is a part of me that wants to see Ramirez get either less than $20 million a year on a contract or--if he gets more than that--a deal of only two years. Let’s be serious; Manny would hardly be harmed by having to deal with someone giving him eight figures after finishing a contract that paid him $160 million but it would look awfully good on Boras.

I do think that Boras had a hand in Ramirez’s behaviour in his exit from Boston. I chronicled my feelings in a two part feature for SMSN Sports here and here. I don’t think Boras told Ramirez to go into the tank but I do think he might have planted in his client’s ear to give the Red Sox the full “Manny being Manny experience” to get out of the Boston and get the option years dropped to get him into free agency.

At the time (before the economy tanked), it appeared that a lucrative offseason was waiting--especially with the Yankees and Mets opening new stadiums and as mentioned in the articles, the only way Boras could make any money off representing Ramirez was to get him into free agency. The only way to get the slugger into free agency was to get the option years dropped, the only way to get the option years dropped was to either make him undesirable to the Red Sox or get himself traded and have the dropping of the option years a condition of accepting a trade as a player with 10-5 rights.

I just think it would be nice if the gambit backfired.

Power corrupts and it’s good to remember that players and agents are homo sapiens no different than the owners and every bit as capable of avarice and dirty dealings. While the MLBPA’s clout has lessened in recent years it’s still considerable and superstar players are the ones the union serves. It’s also common knowledge that Boras is the most powerful agent in the game and history teaches us that given enough leeway, the most powerful start making their own rules.

I think this is what occurred with Ramirez and Boras; elite talent means big dollars to the teams employing them and they’re often given a lot more slack than those of lesser abilities. Don't forget that MLB had to wring every last dollar out of the home run chase and make sure that no team owed Barry Bonds a nickel for services rendered before they found their "conscience" on the issue of employing a particular 'steroid cheat'.

Boras is devious too in achieving his ends--for instance, when J.D. Drew was drafted, he had Drew stay at a different address than the one they provided to the Phillies. They sent the necessary paperwork to the location given but since Drew wasn’t there, Boras tried to claim that they didn’t receive it in the time frame the rules stipulated and made a claim for free agency because of it.

I’m sorry but that’s dishonourable--but that’s Boras.

I’ll be upfront, I want him out of baseball and sooner or later he’ll slip up due to his arrogance and give the owners all the leverage they’ll need to get him de-certified as an agent. Let’s face it, Boras may be brilliant, but some of that is perception because he was dealing with people not as savvy--or patient--as he; I doubt he is a more brilliant tactician than Napoleon Bonaparte but eventually hubris humbles all. Barring untimely death, Boras’ Waterloo is coming--it’s just a question as to when.

I hope it's soon.

If the union does its job and keeps the player marketplace open and honest, keep a salary cap at bay and the sport's revenues continue to grow the young men who play the game can rest assured that market forces and competitive bidding for their services will ensure that they will continue to get their fair share of the pie without the dishonest machinations of a raging, self-serving egomaniac.

Best Regards

John

The Gaston gap...

2008-12-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite readers, a gent by the name of John Louden (he possesses the rare quality of being able to make me laugh while offering constructive critiques on my various rants--not many can utilize “Hamlet” when criticizing a point in a baseball column but he managed it) posited a question to me during an e-mail exchange yesterday:

“Do have a question for you though that was touched on during a game (by Rance, I think)--why was Cito not managing in the years between Jays' gigs? I certainly don't mean to tell you your biz, but maybe there's a column there?”

Now you know why I like him so much--not only is he a provider of thoughtful feedback, he provides ideas for articles when there’s not much cookin’ on the ol’ hot stove.

In Howard Bryant’s excellent book: “Juicing the Game” there was the following point made about the evolution of how major league teams are run:

…Alderson said … “If an organization is worth its salt--we’re talking about maybe the paradigm corporate existence where the corporation has a reputation, it’s been doing things for a long time, it’s innovative and has continuity--why would you turn that company over to not a middle manager, but a lower or upper manager? … the attitude was, ‘We have a philosophy and we’re going to find a manager who is going to implement that philosophy. We’re not looking for someone to tell us how to run the team, or upon which theory it should be predicated. We already have that. We want someone that is going to implement it for us…

“…we’re not hiring you for your philosophy. We’re hiring you because we think you fit ours.”

The on-field philosophy, how a team would approach the daily task of winning, no longer originated in the manager’s office, but in the front office. This created tension on two fronts. The first was that the manager became something of a lame duck. If a manager believed he was the ultimate authority once the game began, he found out swiftly and severely how wrong he was.--pg. 244

That’s it in a nutshell.

I had the privilege of speaking at length with Cito Gaston a few years ago and to this day he remains my favourite and most memorable interview. He was candid, forthright, never clichéd and spoke his mind whether or not he was saying what you wished to hear.

His honesty was refreshing and quite frankly remarkable.

The thing I came away with is what I had suspected for quite some time--he is very much his own man and holds himself accountable to his conscience. He will do what he feels to be right and take whatever consequences that result from that stand.

Gaston is not a man that will let someone else tell him how to handle the troops under his watch. He gets to know the men in his charge and treats them in a way that shows he respects what they can do while at the same time motivating them to give their best and being accountable to themselves, the team and their abilities.

After our conversation ended I understood why his players respected him so and loved playing for him. If a player was busting his butt for the team they knew that Gaston had their backs--there is no subterfuge or ulterior motives in Cito’s approach.

Doubtlessly, teams that interviewed him for managerial positions were looking for men, as stated above, that would follow orders from the higher-ups unquestioningly whereas Gaston was going to do what he felt was right regardless of the wishes of the front office.

In short--he was too much an independent cuss for most teams. Gaston has a philosophy, an approach to the game and demands it be respected. Yes, a club can give Gaston general guidelines (‘We’re rebuilding so play the kids’ … ‘We expect to be competitive so play the best you have and optimize the roster’ etc.) but when it comes to the clubhouse and what happens between the lines Cito is in charge and calls the shots.

Most teams didn’t want someone like that and went in a different direction.

Right now, with major question marks surrounding the starting rotation and concerns about the offense, it is very difficult to look at 2009 with any degree of real optimism but the fans can be assured of this much: the players will be held accountable and excuses will not be tolerated. If there was any degree of a laissez-faire attitude under John Gibbons it will be gone in the coming season. Since the Toronto Blue Jays are not in rebuilding mode we can rest assured that Gaston will take his mandate to win very seriously.

Best Regards

John

Poor little rich boy…

2008-12-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

He has my dream job; he is everything that this world says we should aspire to: good looks, being athletic, wealthy, famous and having a really cool, fun job.

Why do I feel sorry for him?

I, for one, do not subscribe to what folks say is important because if being rich, gorgeous and important is all that is required for true happiness then why are there so many divorces in Hollywood with stories of drug and alcohol abuse, therapists, mental and emotional breakdowns and the like?

But I digress…yes, even on a brand, spanking new blog.

Anyway, my first official linked article (release balloons and confetti) is from Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports (a personal fave and a pretty nice guy…but don’t tell him I said that) who writes A-Rod desperately seeking himself that I think captures the essence of his paradoxical nature.

A-Rod picked USA!...

He went through so much soul searching before he decided to represent the USA at the inaugural World Baseball Classic and I guess after another round of psyche-sifting has decided to represent the Dominican Republic. I remember his first stack of waffles on the subject a few years back and when he finally made up his mind (or found someone to do it for him) one poster on Baseball Think Factory quipped sarcastically “At long last our long national nightmare is over!!!”

I honestly think that at some level that is how Rodriguez feels, that in Times Square (before the first WBC) there were a million people huddled against the cold reading a marquee waiting eagerly for his decision to come across the news feed just waiting to erupt in joyous relief upon learning than Team USA would indeed have A-Rod manning third base while in downtown San Pedro De Macoris babies were crying, he was being burned in effigy soldiers were shooting looters on sight once they heard the news that they would have to rely on a lesser talent to patrol the hot corner.

...and burned in effigy in D.R.

Personally, probably it all went wrong for him when he retained Scott Boras. Sure, it’s simplistic but make no mistake, Boras sees dollar signs wherever he goes; he was once booted from Sunday School for berating Judas Iscariot for being a lousy agent for only getting 30 pieces of silver for the Son of God. Boras saw Rodriguez as a cash cow of aurochian proportions and made sure that he positioned his client to be able to turn everything he touched into gold.

Boras no doubt drummed into the head of the young Rodriguez that he was the sun moon and stars ergo worth every blessed nickel some Hick(s) would be able to throw at him. Yes, he has ignored Boras’s advice at times but for the most part, he heeded the agent of doom. The man stated repeatedly that he wanted to be a New York Met but ended up miserable in Arlington for three years. When it appeared at the end of 2007 that he might again end up where he didn’t wish to play he again took matters into his own hands.

I don’t buy the line that Boras was pulling the strings when he signed his new deal with the Yankees. In 2000, Boras was seeking a quarter billion and got it, seven years later he was aiming for $400 million and missed badly. Here is a discussion of how Boras primed everyone for Rodriguez’s 10 year/$252 million contract--he was not shy about what he was gunning for and he reached it. When Boras was making statements that $350 million would be the starting point for negotiations and that $32 million was the minimum base annual salary etc. it wasn’t because he was priming teams for a lesser amount--that isn’t his M.O. Boras shoots high and keeps his client out on the market until somebody reaches it.

Don’t forget, A-Rod signed his first mega deal in late January but his second just about 2-3 weeks after the World Series ended--bottom line, Boras was reined in by Rodriguez.

It’s a shame that such a prodigious talent has so much baggage and so many insecurities. I can’t help but wonder what he would be like today had he simply gone to the Mets in 2000 and said “Let’s get something done.” Yeah, he wouldn’t have been as wealthy but it’s a shame that despite being an all-time great that he will be defined by money and the man he retained by so many.

Ever since he signed his deal with Texas he has been in spin mode trying to convince folks that he’s not a greedy drone created by Scott Boras and raised on Madison Avenue but that he’s just a guy that is extraordinarily good at what he does for a living. However, Boras just didn’t enrich him, he painted a target on him that caused his faults to be magnified and his virtues explained away as a trifle.

I think that is why we see the Alex Rodriguez we see today. He has gone from great to somewhat buffoonish and his link to Madonna reminds us of the decline and fall of Jose Canseco (without the corresponding erosion in talent). It may give small people a warm feeling of schadenfreude should things end badly for A-Rod but I really hope he can escape whatever demons are pursuing him and we remember him as the man that bested Barry Bonds.

Best Regards

John

Here we go again…

2008-12-05T11:24:00.000-08:00

Yup, once again I’m starting a blog. The first one (Synaptic Flatulence) was sold after I joined The Hardball Times in late 2004 (has it been that long?) and the second one was started after being given inspiration to do so from Drunk Jays Fans and it was called The Progenitor of Severe Gluteal Discomfort. It was transferred to Baseball Digest Daily at the request of a friend that wrote for them (since departed) and has been pretty much assimilated into the fabric of BDD.

However, a blast from my past came into contact with me by the name of Scott Carefoot--he is the one responsible for “Chin Music” my current gig at SMSN Sports and asked if I had any interest in starting a blog that could be added to The Score’s new federation of blogs.

Well, seeing as the first time I accepted an offer from Scott turned out O.K. and the fact that there was money to be made, I readily accepted.

The thing is, while I enjoy writing and blogging about baseball and am passionate about doing so, it is also my vocation. I have bills to pay and being given a choice between blogging for free and blogging for filthy lucre I’ll go for the money every time. I could care less what the schools are like around The Score’s offices nor am I interested in what is in their minor league systems.

After the dot.bomb I had my fill of offers to write for stock. My stock portfolio is indeed impressive and I sleep soundly knowing that it doubles in value every day. However, 2 x 0 always equals zero; one of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons is when Bart creates the cartoon (Bartoon?) “Angry Dad” and the company that carries it pays Bart in stock that comes off a toilet paper roll. He ultimately ends up with 55 million shares.

I haven’t decided what to do with my old blog at Baseball Digest Daily yet. While BDD was recently bought out by Baseball Prospectus, it’s impact on me professionally was nil and I doubt my status where I put the “free” in freelance will change in the foreseeable future. I enjoy working with Joe Harami and admire what he has accomplished; nevertheless pats on the back only go so far when you have a mortgage.

If I have to prioritize my writing, I have to do so by heeding Deep Throat and “follow the money” and right now SMSM, The Hardball Times and here are revenue generators and I have to be pragmatic. Ideally, I’d like to keep my foot in the door at BDD but it would have to be in a reduced role. Joe is tied up with other matters at the moment and I doubt the fate of one his bloggers is an overriding concern. I have friends at BDD and I do enjoy ranting for them.

That’s enough soul-baring for right now.

At any rate, not much else different will transpire here--for better or worse it will still just be me being me: whining, bellyaching, screaming at the Blue Jays, Bud Selig, owners in general or whatever has gotten me worked into a lather. I have been told to just be myself (in heaven’s name--why?) so this will be simply a blog with the usual amenities; I’ll be adding a links page, let readers tell me what a misguided nitwit I am in the comments section, bring along the trademark “Best Regards”, I’ll toss on a widget and of course pimp my own ramblings from other outlets etc.

And awaaaay we go! Welcome to “Ground Rule Trouble”!

Best Regards

John