Cha-ching!

Spending big money on player contracts comes with no guarantee of success or even an assurance that the money will be well spent.  In some cases going big pays off (see “Yankees”), and for some teams the “less is more approach” pays off just as well (see “Athletics”).  Regardless of how much a team spends or how it distributes the spending, every team that makes the playoffs has at least 1 player turning in a big money performance for a fraction of the cost.  So, here I pay tribute to those who overproduce despite being underpaid.  Here are 10 of the “Biggest Bangs for Your Buck” players.

New York Yankees – $209,792,900 total payroll commitments.  For a lot of teams a $10M deal for a single season represents a huge chunk, but the Yankees do not fall into the category of “a lot of teams”.  The team certainly must appreciate the production from big money guys like C.C. Sabathia, Derek Jeter, and Robinson Cano, but they fall well short of Hiroki Kuroda in the “biggest bang for your buck” (BBFYB) category.  Kuroda has given the team a 3.34 ERA over 32 starts which works out to $2M per 1 WAR.  In Bronx Bomber terminology, Kuroda gives them a Sabathia season at less than half the cost of Sabathia.

Detroit Tigers – $133,475,000.  It might be difficult to stand out with Justin Verlander on the roster, but Austin Jackson sticks out like a sore thumb this season.  Giving a team a .298/.376/.476/.852 line with 16 HR, 65 RBI, a 130 OPS+, and outstanding defense at the same time will do that for a guy.  A 5.2 WAR season for just $500K?  Definitely.

Texas Rangers – $120,836,000.  Tempted to think of David Murphy or Alexi Ogando for this one?  Sure, but the unsung hero for the Rangers has been Craig Gentry.  Gentry’s career year at age 30 this season certainly has helped keep the team in contention.  His line of .302/.379/.479/.858 with 15 HR and 59 RBI comes with an extremely reasonable price tag of $484.3K.

Baltimore Orioles – $84,102,333.  Matt Wieters deserves this recognition both for his performance and his handling of the pitching staff.  Consider it a small miracle that the Orioles have a staff ERA of 3.89 in baseball’s most competitive division.  Producing 3.2 WAR for $500K would be sufficient to win the BBFYB award, though.

Oakland A’s – $52,873,000.  You might think it difficult to pick out a BBFYB winner on a team full of underpaid talent.  Josh Reddick makes the decision quite easy, though.  4.5 WAR for $485K makes it a no-brainer, and I’m all about not using more brain power than necessary.

San Francisco Giants – $131,355,298.  Buster Posey definitely belongs in the MVP conversation, but he already owns the BBFYB title for the Giants.  He leads the NL with 7.2 WAR for a measly $615K.  Too bad for the Giants he reaches arbitration eligibility after this season, because that salary number should increase an awful lot.  With a substantial raise, Posey will likely lose that BBFYB title, but that is a good problem to have.

St Louis Cardinals – $111,858,500.  Up until a few weeks ago, the reigning World Series MVP, David Freese, had the Biggest Bang for your Buck title sewn up.  Then Pete Kozma happened.  Kozma has given the Cardinals 1.1 WAR in just 25 games (79 PAs).  Considering that he makes the minimum and wasn’t expected to contribute at a Major League level this season, he edges out Freese just slightly.

Atlanta Braves – $93,529,667.  The Braves have at least 3 legitimate candidates in this race.  Jason Heyward and Craig Kimbrel are worthy, but Kris Medlen has just been unreal.  Going 10-1 merits attention in just about any situation, but doing so over the 2nd half of the season when some teams fall of the pace is like a jolt of adrenaline.  From his 1.57 ERA to his 4.2 WAR, Medlen has proven himself to be worth far more than the $490K he’s getting paid.

Cincinnati Reds – $87,826,167.  Flip and coin between Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart.  You really can’t go wrong with either one.  Frazier provides the Reds with pretty good corner infield bat.  Cozart gives them a decent bat but a plus defender at shortstop.  Cozart gets the BBFYB nod for being a better all-around player, but both are really good deals at $480K a year.

Most of the aforementioned players get enough media attention that casual fans have probably at least heard of them, but I thought it worth pointing out just how much they produced without breaking the bank.

Radio device..thing

The image of a person sitting on the back porch listening to a radio broadcast of a baseball game on a late summer evening remains as untainted now as it was 30 years ago.  The play-by-play announcer’s voice rising to match the crescendo of the game action and crowd noise just has a certain nostalgic feel to it.  It’s pure Americana.  Maybe the AM/FM device itself has changed in shape and function over the years, but the product delivered by that particular vehicle has not.  The remnants of radio’s old guard still working games has helped ease the transition into the information era.

You can now watch 4+ games simultaneously while receiving score updates via text/email, and catch highlights on your mobile device of choice.  You still cannot replicate the quiet, solitary effect of creating the game’s images in your mind as a broadcast team gives you all that is needed to do so via a simple radio.  That represents no intentional slight against television and/or the laptop/Macbook/mobile device you use to enhance your game experience.  The sheer volume of information now delivered to the end user via a televised broadcast makes for a wonderfully welcome addition to the experience….sometimes.

The only real fault I find with having so much information at your disposal is that television broadcasters provide marginal returns in terms of value added.  In the days of television before PitchFX data, pitch tracking, and statistics updated to the minute, the broadcasters were the distributors of such data.  They could easily disseminate pages upon pages worth of batting splits, average by position, and pitch count information to be eagerly consumed by the multitude of mushrooms that were otherwise kept in the dark.

Times they are a changing.  In the time it takes for a pitcher to finish his warmup tosses, I can obtain the previous history of the first 3 hitters in the inning against the man on the mound.  This information can then be tweeted to hundreds of others watching the game, and some of them can in turn pass along the information to even more people.  This data accessibility and the nature of social media make for a challenging environment in which networks must thrive.  Either find a way to evolve with the content streams and disparate sources, or find themselves rendered solely a visual aid to the radio broadcast.

Anyone with a good wifi connection can turn the tv on mute and listen to the “local” radio broadcast from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.  If they choose to do so at home, they can freely move from couch to loveseat to recliner and from patio to deck to media room.  I often bring up the game on MLBtv and listen to the radio broadcast while I’m connected to my iPhone 15 feet away using a bluetooth headset.  In that way I become the all-powerful consumer of game feeds and information.

What have the television networks done to bring me back to face the high-definition tv in the living room?

Very little.  The occasional glimpse of the graphical interpretation of the strike zone and perceived location of each pitch holds my attention for a few seconds at a time.  The incessant blathering by a former player (or 2) in matching polos or suits does little in terms of adding a unique perspective.  All their stories from their playing days have long since been told, repackaged, told again, and finally told in highlights.  Professional analysis of situational baseball scenarios need not be thrown against the wall yet again to see what still sticks.

The fan of today is better informed and more savvy than the fan of 30 years ago.  It’s time networks embrace this truth and work harder to stay ahead of the curve.  With all the real estate that modern televisions provide and with the addition of a 2nd piece of real estate on another screen, networks have all the reasons in the world to claim space.  Why not have a win probability graph accompanied by the odds of scoring once, twice, or even three times in a given inning?  Where are the hitter’s spray charts and heat maps?  Why not show velocity data for each pitch type thrown?

Someone will identify and opportunity and take hold of both the television screen and the 2nd one as well.  When that happens, all networks will have to evolve to meet the demands placed on them by fans.  At that time the evolution will certainly be televised, DVR’d, and live streamed.  Even then, radio will still have a place on that back deck as the deer stroll through the field on that late summer evening.

WC Standings (from ESPN)

The last time the Pittsburgh Pirates finished with a record above .500 Barry Bonds was skinny, George H. W. Bush was the President of the United States, and Miley Cyrus had not yet been spawned.  Jim Leyland was the manager, and the team had reached the NLCS 3 consecutive times without winning a trip to the World Series.  From 1990-92 the Pirates went 289-197 during the regular season and had all the makings of a perennial contender.  Then Barry Bonds hit free agency and ended up taking his toys to play in the San Francisco sandbox.

Since that time, the Pirates have posted 19 straight losing seasons, and they are in danger of making it an even 20.  Unfortunately for the Pirates (and their fans), this year was really supposed to be different from the previous 19.  The team made a serious effort to at least make this season a turning point for the franchise.  Just over 1 month ago, the Pirates looked really, really good.  The team stood 67-54, and it was not a smoke-and-mirrors act, either.  The team had a run differential of +21, and they were in serious contention for a wild card spot.

Then the bottom fell out….or the wheels fell off….or they found themselves stuck in a certain creek without means of propulsion.  Regardless of how it happened or how one chooses to describe the precipitous fall – it happened.  In spite of an opening day payroll of $52M (team’s largest since 2003), the Pirates simply could not handle prosperity.  The team went from 13 games above .500 to 2 games below that mark.  It took an 8-23 stretch, but they managed it.  Now the Pirates need to finish at least 6-4 to avoid the 20th consecutive season with a losing record.

They may need some assistance to reach that record.  The team has 4 games against the Mets starting today in NYC.  After that, the Pirates host the Reds and then the Braves for consecutive  3-game sets to finish the season.  Given that the team does not have a winning record against any of the 3 aforementioned opponents, 6-4 might be a tall order.  As a longtime fan of the Cardinals, I must admit to having some bias where the Pirates are concerned.  Old rivalries fade away slowly.  As a baseball fan, I’m quietly rooting for them to go 7-3 to secure a winning record for the first time in 2 decades.

Despite having what appears to be a significant talent deficit on paper, the Pirates always seem to play really well against the Cardinals and happen to own a 8-7 season series victory this year.  That earns them a certain measure of respect.  Playing hard to be a “spoiler” near the end of the season also warrants some respect.  Finally, the ability to persevere through almost 20 years of futility should give each hardcore fan some kind of “I watched 19 really bad seasons of baseball in Pittsburgh and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” badge on Foursquare.

Instead, the Pittsburgh faithful may be stuck with yet another losing season and exclusion from the MLB postseason yet again.  If nothing else, at least they can look forward to next year when the payroll projection may push the Pirates over the $70M mark.  Of course, the fans have already learned that spending more money does not come with a guarantee of team success.  On the other hand, it usually doesn’t hurt, either.

Douche….Canoe….Captain

Honestly, some Spanish words just sound better than their English counterparts.  While “ignorante” flows off the tongue like the most beautifully heinous Latin invective imaginable, calling Yunel Escobar an “ignorant, homophobic jackass” also has a certain guttural quaintness as well.  Since science yet denies us the ability to truly read another person’s thoughts, we cannot fully know what has gone through Escobar’s mind.  Perhaps more important is what was not going through Escobar’s cranial space each and every time he chose to use an eye black sticker decorated by a homophobic slur.  That leaves us with the tried and true method of simply damning him for his actions based only on the data presented.

Escobar knew exactly what the words meant.  He turned himself into a small, mobile billboard for hate every time he took the field using the stickers.  He failed mightily in protesting his innocence by invoking the “I have gay friends” defense.  By that same logic, I can approve random acts of hate against dumb people, because I know a lot of dumb people.  Life does not in fact work that way.  He basically rattled off a slightly askew version of the “I’m sorry if my actions offended anyone” mantra that so many professional athletes use when they obviously offended more than just a few.  Based on his pathetic attempt at an apology, he still does not fully understand the ramifications of his actions.

Does he really believe that the Latin community as a whole accepts the use of derogatory slang that spews forth hate at gay people?  Apparently, he does.  Mind you, calling someone a “faggot” does not equate to the counter-intuitive custom of slurping out of a bowl while eating to show approval that you find prevalent in some Asian cultures.  This is not the same as the popular yet juvenile act of bestowing a terrible nickname on a good friend in college that may stick with the person for life (ie Spanky or Douche Canoe Captain).  Homophobia might have a reasonable shot at simultaneously being both the most ridiculous and unacceptable form of prejudice in existence.

Racism continues to diminish in many places as an unsustainable prejudice simply due to the prevalence of integrated relationships that produce mixed-race children.  Actually, the relative purity of any single person on the planet merits serious discussion as DNA mapping shows increasingly that genetic markers indicate racial “influence” well beyond what your family tree may show.  Sexism may be alive and well, but it certainly has come a long way in 50 years.  The various talking points for gender gap discussions remain valid in a general sense, but the specifics are changing with each passing year.  I personally reject the notion that gender equality means that a man and a woman with similar educational backgrounds, skill sets, industry experience, professional networks, and tenure should be compensated equally.  What if the woman does a better job or a more efficient one than her male counterpart?  Should we simply stop at expecting her to be equally compensated?  No.  That’s not what “gender equality” should mean.  It should be about equal treatment.

The same should be said for gays and lesbians with a singular difference.  Homophobia makes even less sense in the grand scheme of things.  Hate based on something as arbitrary as skin color or sex seems plain dumb.  Hate based on something not easily observed seems absolutely preposterous.  From 50 feet away, I can usually differentiate between a male and a female of our species.  From that same distance, I can usually pick out an Asian from a non-Asian.  Beyond that, I cannot with much certainty say much else about the person at all.  Perhaps the last possible thing I could identify about a person from that distance is sexual orientation.  I have a better chance of guessing their dog’s name than I do of establishing anything about sexual preference.

Mind you, all people have the right to hate and in turn like whatever they see fit.  At the same time, I also have the right, nay the privilege to point at them and laugh.  I mock them in all ways possible, and no specific person, group, or society can hide from my mocking.  I make jokes at the expense of athletes, celebrities, gays, non-gays, lesbians, non-lesbians, skinny people, overweight people, people who tan too much, people who watch Honey Boo Boo, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, black people, white people, mixed people, people with moles, people with birds, dog people, cat people, Asians, my family members, your family members, and your next door neighbor’s college roommate’s cousin who once appeared on Family Feud in a pair of coveralls.  The difference between Escobar and me is that I make fun of many of these people without necessarily knowing which of the aforementioned categories they fit into.

Does that make me a better person?  Certainly not.  I probably shouldn’t mock anybody, but I do.  It’s a character defect.   You can call me an idiot for behaving the way I do, but you would be hard-pressed to call me a racist, sexist, or homophobic jerk store and back it up with any evidence.  Just the same, Escobar can content himself with moving forward in life under the pretense that it’s okay for him to quietly dislike gay people.  As long as those thoughts do not somehow result in an unkind act, I see no reason to linger on the issue.  He probably could use some kind of counseling or educational process, but he can easily go through life wallowing in his own ignorance.  The only thing that has really changed is that everybody knows just how ignorant he is.  Maybe he would have been better off being thought a fool than wearing the offensive eye black and removing all doubt.

Molina and….Molina?

Go ahead and call me a “birther” if you will, but I demand to see Salvador Perez‘s birth certificate.  Just pull back the facade of falsified documentation, and give it to me straight.  He’s a Molina.  I’m certain of this.  Allegedly, Perez was born in Venezuela, but Venezuela sits just a short popfly away from Puerto Rico on the global scale of things.  There must be someone out there who can help me prove that the Royals somehow found the “lost” Molina brother.  Granted, the family resemblance may not be striking, but half-brother would not be far-fetched.

How else can you explain the way Perez plays the game?

He has exactly 100 games of Major League Baseball experience under his belt, yet he shows many signs of baseball maturity befitting a man 10 years his elder.  For the love of all things Molina, the man just turned 22 at the beginning of this season.  In 2012 alone, Perez-Molina has accounted for 2.4 WAR which basically guarantees a solid return on the 5 yr / $7M investment the Royals made in him.  That’s the baseball equivalent of buying Apple at a discount to original opening price and selling right after an iPhone/iPad announcement.  Once you recoup that initial outlay, everything else basically represents pure gravy (minus capital gains taxes in the event you sell early).  Perez-Molina is Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all in one.

About that 2.4 WAR – it does not just come from competent work at the plate.  Given just 64 games (259 PAs), Perez-Molina boasts a line of .310/.336/.510/.846 with 11 HR and 36 RBI.  That helps explain the 2.0 oWAR.  His total DRS (defensive runs saved) stands at 7 which ties him for 2nd among all MLB catchers with Ryan Hanigan.  The difference between the 2 of them is that Hanigan has played 787.0 innings at catcher.  PM just reached 553.0 innings played.  The guy leading both of them?  Yadier Molina, of course.  Molina has a DRS total of 17.  Of course, Molina has built that number over the course of 1045.2 innings played.

PM does not simply save runs by blocking the plate or throwing out his share of would-be base stealers.  Nope.  He guns down would-be thieves at a rate of 44% against a league average of just 25%.  Not to be outdone, his older brother (or half-brother) throws out 46% of all potential base stealers (league avg of 27%).  So, if you happen to be keeping score at home, the summary goes….

• Yadier Molina – .320/.376/.502/.878, 139 OPS+, 27 doubles, 19 HR, 67 RBI in 125 games
• Sal Perez-Molina – .310/.336/.510/.846, 128 OPS+, 16 doubles, 11 HR, 36 RBI in 64 games

Now, it might be a logical stretch to simply extrapolate Perez’s numbers to compare apples to apples, but that Perez-Molina guy still has a long way to go.  Molina’s 6.3 WAR (4.5 oWAR and 2.5 dWAR) places him among the top 5 most productive players in the NL (based on WAR).  He did not get to that point overnight, and he certainly was not a .300 hitter at age 22.

The more Perez produces over the next year or so, the more the long term signing appears to be a bargain for the Royals.  After all, Molina made $3.3M in his 5th year.  Perez is signed for $2.0M for his 5th year, and those numbers are not inflation adjusted.  However, the real kicker for the Perez deal gives the Royals team options that total $14.75M for Perez’s age 27-29 season.  Compare that to the $26.3M the Cardinals pay Molina for his 7th, 8th, and 9th seasons.

None of this gives me the confidence to project Sal Perez as the next Yadier Molina or Ivan Rodriguez, but he has gotten off to a great start.  Better yet, his work this year has already provided some justification for the move the Royals made to lock him down long term.  For a team that operates on a relatively small budget, the possibility of having an elite catcher for a relatively low price means an awful lot.  Maybe others will recognize Sal Perez-Molina for what he has already accomplished at the most demanding position in baseball.

Office Space FTW!

Your mission (should you choose to accept it) consists of explaining how in the world the Baltimore Orioles reached mid-September with a statistically plausible chance at making the playoffs.  How exactly does a team that ranks 16th in runs scored, 21st in batting average, 23rd in OBP, and 12th in slugging hang with the big bad wolves of the AL East?  More importantly, how can someone explain with a straight face that the same team that sits 18th in ERA, 25th in quality starts, 20th in WHIP, and 16th in batting average against also has a tenuous grip on either the 2nd wild card spot or the division lead?

Without a crack team of researchers (or maybe a team researching crack), one might think such a thing impossible.  Below average pitching combined with sub-par hitting somehow results in a playoff contender.  If a Baseball Urban Dictionary exists somewhere on the interwebs, the Orioles’ team photo must be pictured under the section on “logical incongruity”.  Explain the anomalous nature of this Baltimore beast, or be relegated to watching Golden Girls reruns.

The Orioles have exactly 3 players who have accumulated more than 2.0 oWAR – Adam Jones (4.8 oWAR) and Nick Markakis (2.4 oWAR), and Matt Wieters (2.1 oWAR).  Moreover, Markakis just went down for the season with a broken left thumb.  Of all the players who qualify for MLB’s statistical leader boards, Markakis was the batting average leader for the team at .298.  Total number of qualifying players hitting .300+?  Zero.  After Markakis at .363, the next highest OBP belongs to Adam Jones at .351.  Jones happens to have the highest OPS at .848.  For perspective, the Rangers have 3 players above that OPS mark.

The Orioles have exactly 1 starting pitcher with 10 wins or more, and that happens to be Wei-Yin Chin at 12-9.  The Cardinals have 4 starters at 13 or more wins, and they are struggling to lock down the 2nd wild card position in the NL.  So, exactly how can the O’s success be explained?  Please rationalize how a team can play 11 games ahead of Pythagorean W/L pace.

• Opportunistic offense:  The team has hit .251/.324/.436/.760 with runners in scoring position which translates to 407 runs scored in 994 opportunities.  By comparison, the Yankees have hit .253/.350/.424/.775 with runners in scoring position, but the Bombers have only pushed across 452 runs despite having 135 more opportunities than the Orioles.
• Doing just enough:  The Orioles lead the majors in winning percentage in games decided by 1 run with a 25-7 record.
• Playing a hard 9….10….11:  The Orioles are currently tied with the Nationals for the most wins in extra innings in baseball (12).  The Nationals have gone into bonus baseball 19 times and lost 7.  The Orioles have gone extras just 14 times and lost only twice.  2.  The deuce.  That’s 12-2 when the number of innings hits double digits.
• Relief work:  Combined ERA for all Baltimore pitchers in relief – 3.15.  That group has accounted for 58 “holds” and 46 saves.  By comparison, the Rangers have the best record in the AL, and their relievers have combined for a 3.29 ERA, 54 holds, and 37 saves.  The difference?  The Orioles have relied on the bullpen for 468.0 innings this season.  The Rangers have used relievers for just 388.1 innings.

Maybe the Orioles can keep it going by getting just enough offense at the right time.  After all, the team has made it 141 games using this not-so-secret formula.  Perhaps maintaining a negative run differential while staying 17 games above .500 will prove unsustainable.  Just don’t let the Orioles know that.  It would be a shame for them to realize how much of an uphill battle they are fighting (and winning).

NOTE: This was written before last night’s walk-off win that pushed the Orioles to 26-7 in games decided by 1 run.

C’mon man!?

Under normal circumstances, I would consider it ludicrous to argue against a guy hitting .327/.402/.531/.933 winning an MVP award.  The 20 HR and 87 RBI certainly strengthen the case for Buster Posey at least being in the conversation.  He plays the most demanding position on the field, and he accounts for 5.5 WAR this season on a team leading its division by 5.5 games.

Then again, an argument can be made that he does not even rate as the best catcher in the NL.  Yadier Molina has put together a career year, and he deserves as much consideration as Posey does (if not more).  Yadi’s line of .321/.373/.505/.877 with 18 HR and 65 RBI falls just short of the offensive pace set by Posey, but the debate does not end there.  Posey gives the Giants 5.8 oWAR but just 0.1 dWAR.  Molina gives the Cardinals a more balanced 4.1 oWAR and 2.2 dWAR.

One of these players provides a lot of offense and happens to play catcher.  The other plays catcher and happens to provide a lot of offense.  Say all you want about Posey, but you cannot avoid the incontrovertible truth that he has played 22 games at 1B for a total of  163.0 innings.  He also has 3 games as a DH under his belt.  Molina has 984.0 innings at catcher and just 9.0 innings at 1B.  Posey hits primarily from the #4 spot in the San Francisco lineup.  The bulk of Molina’s plate appearances come in the #6 spot – typically accompanied by a light hitting middle infielder as lineup “protection”.

Posey has already had 159 plate appearances with runners in scoring position.  Molina?  109.  To Posey’s credit he’s hitting .355/.447/.548/.995 with runners in scoring position.  Then again, Molina hits .340/.407/.532/.939 in the same situation.  With 2 outs and RISP, Posey bats just .208/.387/.354/.741, and he’s a .313 hitter “late and close”.  With 2 outs and ducks on the pond in scoring position, Molina gives the Cardinals .320/.393/.520/.913, and he’s a .338 in “late and close” situations.  Posey wins the battle in a tie game with an OPS of 1.164 to Molina’s .848.  The end result is a 33 to 19 RBI advantage for Posey who also happens to get far more opportunities in that situation (145 pa to 100).

One of these guys throws out base stealers at a 45% clip.  The other is Posey (29%).  The league average is 26%.  Molina has yielded just 32 stolen bases this season.  Posey has given away 80 bonus base passes.  Naturally, many more attempts have been made against him, but throwing out just 32 of 112 seems a bit low for an “elite catcher”.

Of course, the debate between Posey and Molina basically could amount to a moot point.  Andrew McCutchen has basically carried the Pirates all season and has given them a legitimate shot at finishing the season with a .500 record or better.  If you believe that the MVP must come from a playoff contender, then maybe you should just take your elitist attitude out of my sandbox.  If any player in the NL has been more “valuable” to a team than McCutchen, then I have yet to see him play.  Cutch carries a .966 OPS for a team that doesn’t have another regular within 100 points of that.

When the debate points bring you to a logical conclusion, I believe the following to be true:

• Posey would not have quite the production numbers he has if not for Melky Cabrera hitting .363/.401/.547/.948 in the #3 spot this season (before getting suspended for being a really bad cheater).
• Molina would not merit consideration without being in a stacked lineup with a bunch of .800+ OPS guys.
• The Pirates would be on the way to the team’s 20th consecutive losing season if not for McCutchen accounting for 6.2 of the team’s 13.3 WAR provided by batters.

Maybe we should change the discourse to focus on Cutch instead of the guys who catch.

The Big Pajamas

Fans hear regularly just how much baseball players have improved in terms of strength, conditioning, and speed over the years, but such a generalization ignores the glaring omissions.  Not everybody looks like Dan Uggla and requires a scratching post to get to the spot between the shoulder blades.  As John Kruk famously pronounced, “Lady, I’m not an athlete. I’m a professional baseball player.”

Well put, Kruk.  So here’s a hat tip to the guys who appear to be more John Kruk than Ron Gant.  For the waitstaff at Golden Corral and every pizza buffet in every major league baseball city, here is the “All Expandables” team.

• Adam Dunn – 6’6″, 285 pounds might be a little generous for “Big Donkey”, but when you have 403 career home runs at age 32, you get to knock off 5-10…..errrr 40 pounds.
• Ronny Paulino – 6’3″, 250 pounds puts the “back” in “backstop”.  As a pitcher, you want a guy who can block the plate, and Paulino basically forms an eclipse under a facade of catcher’s gear.
• CC Sabathia – 6’7″, 290 pounds.  If Sabathia is 290 pounds, then I’m a burrito, and you can eat me.  Seriously, when you can make a New York Yankees uniform look like a huge set of pajamas, you have that “livin large” thing down pat.
• Jeff Niemann – 6’9″, 285.  I’ve seen offensive linemen in the NFL smaller than this guy.  He’s like Andre the Giant after a year on the Atkin’s Diet.
• Victor Marte – 6’2″, 255.  He’s the world’s largest Weeble.  He often wobbles, but he has yet to fall down on the mound.
• Jonathan Broxton – 6’4″, 300.  Remember that scene in Tommy Boy when Chris Farley is singing “Fat Guy in a Little Coat”?  Now imagine that scene with Broxton’s body and Farley’s voice.  Classic.
• Carlos Lee – 6’2″, 270.  Lee has always been a sizable guy since entering MLB, but he seems to have ballooned since signing that 6 yr / $100M deal before the 2007 season.  Can’t say that I blame him one bit, either.
• Kenley Jansen – 6’5″, 260.  Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration.  If Jansen just moves down the mound in the direction of home plate, that must guarantee at least a 70 mph pitch just based on soft tossing a baseball.
• David Ortiz – 6’4″, 250.  Umm, yeah.  250.  If you subtract 10 pounds for every 100 home runs hit in his career, then maybe you arrive at “250″.  That might be the only plausible explanation.

In fairness, America has a propensity for eating fast food and tackling large portion sizes like ravenous spork-wielding animals.  However, all the aforementioned players have ready access to medical teams, nutritionists, numerous healthy restaurant options, capricious workout spaces, and the means to employ a person trainer or chef.  I kid because I care.  The NFL has long seen many overweight players pass away far too early from heart disease or some other condition strongly connected to obesity.

Shouldn’t the MLB or at least the MLB Player’s Association encourage the guys who are large and in charge to look out for their long term health prospects?  Whether your allegiance as a fan lies with “Big Papi” or the “Big Donkey”, I would hope that you see the toll that the extra pounds can take on even professional athletes.  While I root for a lot of these guys to make the right play on the field, I’m now also cheering for them to make the right dietary choices off of it.  If my kid chooses to look up to a ballplayer, I hope at least he can see them past the muffin tops.

President Selig

President George Bush said this.  Actually, he said something slightly different, and he was not speaking about baseball or revocable waivers.  However, he had a good idea, if you change the words and apply them to MLB.

“We will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail.” -George Bush in 2001

MLB’s revocable waiver period represents a rather illogical extension of the non-waiver trading period.  Teams play a rather ridiculous game of cat-and-mouse using this period after the pseudo-trade deadline expires to dangle players, rid themselves of bloated contracts, or just tease opposing teams with a glimpse at what could be.  The travesty of this lies in the way teams play this demeaning game and in doing so also game the system.

Consider first a scenario in which a team has already concluded that contending for a playoff spot falls into the realm of “pipe dream”.  The team has a few high-profile players signed to deals that run for another 3-4 years.  If they make overtures to trade said players, they risk offending the players as well as the fan base.  If they try to quietly make it know that players “A” and “B” could be had for the right price, someone will inevitably let that information slip to some media person who will tweet the information before concluding the conversation with the “high-placed, reliable source within the organization”.  Get the drift?

Then contemplate a second scenario in which the same team waits until past the trade deadline to make a few calls (or send texts/emails/candygram).  Both players “A” and “B” get quietly placed on revocable waivers.  When someone finally realizes that both players have hit the waiver wire, the GM or a patsy acting on behalf of the GM can always say the move was a strategic one to smoke out potential buyers and better assess weaknesses other teams have.  Also, the team owns some oceanfront property in Arizona and a bridge that it deems fit for sale.

Of course, the waiver process involves teams making claims (or not) which get prioritized from the bottom of one league to the top and repeated from bottom to top in the other league, if no team makes a claim.  This highly sophisticated form of calling “dibs” on a waived player amounts to a lot of sound and smoke that typically signifies absolutely nothing.  Some teams simply use the opportunity to cast off roster fodder in hopes someone else will pick up the tab.  Other teams scour the waiver wire for a guy like Randy Wolf who can handle giving the team a good 6-8 losses by the end of the season.  Then you have what the Dodgers and Red Sox pulled off recently.  Almost a quarter of a billion in payroll changed from one set of books to another.  No issue with that here, but it merits mentioning that under a slightly different system of rules, that deal may have been put together sooner.

That’s not to say that the Dodgers “deserve” to have the services of one Adrian Gonzalez for an extra month, but for another team in another time a similar deal could make a huge difference.  Why not consider either pushing the non-waiver trade deadline back, or changing some of the trading rules to make the waiver period much longer and easier to navigate?  Make this whole process a bit more exciting by making a few not-so-subtle changes, too.

• All players without no-trade or limited no-trade protection clauses get to create 3 tiers of trade preferences.  Each tier consists of 10 teams.  If the player gets traded to a team in the 1st preferred tier, he gets a pat on the back and plane ticket out of town.  If the player gets traded to a team in the 2nd preferred tier, he gets a bonus equal to 10% of his base salary for the season.  If the player goes to a team in the 3rd preferred tier, he gets a bonus of 20% his base pay and a coupon to 20% off his next meal at Olive Garden.
• Either the trade deadline gets moved to the end of August, or the entire period from opening day to August 31st becomes a really long, revocable trade period.  Move the trade deadline back, and teams can push off the “fight or flight” decision about playoff legitimacy until the races really take shape.  Go with the waiver plan, and teams have more flexibility to be active without inviting public relations nightmares to surface.

Why all the trouble?  Legit question.  The current system worked fine for a while, and few would complain about keeping it a while longer.  However, the addition of 1 more wild card spot in each league completely changes things.  Maybe the first wild card spot projects in mid-July to go to a team that hits 91-92 wins.  Under that condition, a lot of teams hovering close to a .525-50 winning percentage have to seriously consider whether to buy, sell, or hold.  Let us then say that the 2nd wild card spot projects to go for around 88 wins.  That brings a lot of potential contenders back into the conversation.  Unfortunately, mid-July and early October are separated by an awful lot of games on the schedule.

What if a team decides on August 1st that it can really make a run with just a little added help?  The current system makes it very difficult for that team to finagle a #3 starting pitcher or a middle infielder who can hit .270.  Seems like a real shame to me.  Give the waiver/trade system more flexibility, and maybe the redistribution of talent will increase the number of games that “count” later in the season as more teams than ever before consider themselves contenders.  What is there to lose?  Sure, the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” could widen at first, and the 2012 Dodgers might be the case study for that happening.  However, the 2015 Dodgers might produce the case study for how talent redistribution via the exchange of bloated contract obligation tranches brings down a franchise for years.

Let the big money players make the same moves big money players have always made, but give the small market teams more chances to dump contracts onto them.  It could help effectively level the playing field without altering the luxury tax system or the revenue sharing process.  Think about it.

Got Melk?

Despite public outcry over well-established baseball “cheats”, MLB blatantly refuses to mark record book items with an asterisk or any other symbol to denote any form of cheating.  Technically, a player can receive a ban for PED use and still win a triple crown category, a World Series, or even All-Star game MVP.  The fact that most violators never go beyond a 50-game ban practically encourages some players to at least consider using a performance enhancer.  Why not?  Weigh the potential good against the bad – both in terms of ethics and practical factors.

The sport possesses no strict ethos against cheating, and some of the most glorified, hallowed names in the Hall of Fame cheated the sport in one way or another.  Doctoring the ball to improve pitch movement?  Definitely.  Spiking opposing players to break up a double play or help ensure a safe call on an attempted steal?  Sure.  Taking various flavors of amphetamines to make it through a game after a long bender the previous night?  That encompasses a whole decade or more of players.

But start making a run at the career home run record, and all of a sudden people get religion about PED use.  Miss about 60 games in your age 34 season and come back and hit .339/.535/.781/1.316 with 258 HR, 544 RBI, 872 BB, and a 241 OPS+ from your age 35-39 seasons, and the 4 consecutive MVP awards lose a bit of luster.  That will not stop you from being lauded and spoken of in glowing terms even as many, many casual observers and critics whisper not-so-quietly about your bobblehead self being a better player AFTER 15 years in the majors than you were for those first 15.

Of course, Barry Bonds has some elite company in the pantheon of known cheats and suspected cheats.  Mark McGwire was not in Washington to “talk about the past”.  Sammy Sosa had no idea he ever used a corked bat or anything else to give him an edge.  That 50 HR season for Brady Anderson just happened to be a cosmic alignment gone right.  Ignore the fact that he never hit more than 24 HR in any other of his 15 major league season.  He just had it going for 1 magical season, right?  Sure.  MVPee Ryan Braun narrowly escaped a 50-game suspension when Shyam Das was unable to properly interpret MLB’s wordy description of “chain of custody”, and now Melky Cabrera has upset the apple cart yet again.

When I first heard the news about Melky Cabrera’s positive test for synthetic testosterone, I immediately wanted to know whether or not he would qualify for the batting title.  My first reaction to hearing that he would not gave me a sense of relief, although I sincerely hoped that someone else like Andrew McCutchen would top Cabrera’s .346 average outright.  After giving all this some time to digest, I have changed my mind.  Would baseball be better off in the long run, if Cabrera actually did win a batting title the same year he tested positive for PED use?  I think the answer may be “yes”.

The unfortunate and unintended consequence would be that McCutchen likely deserves a batting title that he would not win.  That alone should get Pirates fans up in arms and rightfully so.  It would also have much of the MLB fan base outraged, and some greater good could be the end result.  If ever there was a time and place to introduce the ” * ” into the record books for PED use, then the proper time and place would be after a PED user wins an award in a triple crown category.  In a sense, such a thing flies in the face of all who have played the game even more so than a cheater winning a Gold Glove or an MVP award.  The triple crown categories are not decided by vote, a show of hands, or hanging chads in Florida.  No, the category winners are decided by raw numbers, and those rarely lie.

If Melky can go from a lifetime .275/.331/.398/.729 hitter to a .346/.390/.516/.906 masher, then maybe MLB can wake up and smell the testosterone finally.  The current system still favors the bold, or at least it favors the bold cheater.  As this pertains to the aforementioned concern regarding practical factors, consider for a moment the basic risk/reward scenario for an average player.  After taxes, agent fees, and all other sorts of business expenses, a player making as much as $1M a year may do quite well, but he certainly won’t be able to sustain wealth at that pace.  If he intends to cash in enough to be set for life, he needs to make at least twice that amount or multiple years.  Given that scenario, how tempting might a quick fix to overcome injury or improve physical stamina be?

Honestly, I’d do it in a heartbeat in that situation.  I’d sacrifice long term health for a huge payday without thinking twice.  The thought that my family would be financially secure outweighs any concerns I have about myself.  Does that make me a bad person?

Who cares?  I would not lose any sleep over such a thing, and I’m sure some athletes face that decision all the time.  Since MLB cannot change the player side of the equation, then it must change the baseball side.  If that means stricter rules, longer suspensions, and a symbolic addition to the player’s career numbers, then that needs to happen.  If players must submit to more random testing, then so be it.  The argument about personal freedoms and rights just rings hollow when your integrity gets challenged.  Man up and pee in the little cup.