The Standings

One of the great beauties of baseball is that it's so unpredictable. Every year, a team or two that appear moribund make play0ff runs. The Rays and Cards of '08 come to mind. Conversely, some squad that's stacked, tanks. 2008's Detroit and Cleveland are exemplars.

Paradoxically, that makes pre-season projections so much fun. The one below is from Baseball Projection, which uses a system called CHONE (named facetiously for creator Sean Smith) to project the most likely performance from each player in the league, estimate his playing time, and then aggregate all that for each team. It calculates the resulting runs scored versus runs allowed and then uses the Pythagorean formula to project the team's record.

The shortcomings of this method (or any projection made prior to Opening Day) are so transparent as to belie comment. But the projections do give us a guide as to which teams appear stonger or weaker than you might have thought at first glance. Keep in mind that these projections don't include Manny Ramirez's signing or any trades/signings/injuries after February 24.

American
East	W	L		Central	W	L		West	W	L
Yankees	97	65		Indians	90	72		Angels	85	77
Red Sox	96	66		Tigers	85	77		A's	81	81
Rays	89	73		Twins	79	83		Mariners	78	84
Blue Jays	75	87		White Sox	73	89		Rangers	72	90
Orioles	74	88		Royals	72	90
National
East	W	L		Central	W	L		West	W	L
Phillies	87	75		Cubs	88	74		Dodgers	82	80
Braves	86	76		Cardinals	83	79		Padres	80	82
Mets	86	76		Reds	82	80		D-Backs	79	83
Marlins	75	87		Brewers	81	81		Rockies	78	84
Nationals	74	88		Pirates	73	89		Giants	77	85
				Astros	72	90

Remember that these are "average" projections; i.e., there is an equal chance according to this system that each team will win either more or fewer than the number of games listed. So, for example, the Rays may have more upside than the Yanks and Sox, but more downside as well. 89 wins is the midpoint.

I personally believe that the Mets should be a narrow favorite in the NL East and that the Indians and Mariners are vastly overrated by this system. I think the Royals are improving and would bet real American legal tender that they don't have the worst record in baseball. I'm surprised by the lack of respect for the Cubs in a weak NL Central, but not surprised at all by the tossup nature of the NL West.

Take it for what it's worth.

Dodging A Headache

A sufficient number of baseball observers have scratched their heads publicly over Manny Ramirez's rejection of the Dodgers' two-year, $45 million offer, that I'll refrain from piling on.

Scott Boras has always been able to find a bigger sucker when it seemed his client had already pushed the market far beyond his value, so far be it for me to criticize him and his client for demuring at an offer that overstates his value, in my view.

Manny, now another year older, is not going to hit this year or next anywhere near as well as he did for half a season in L.A. It's just a fact of human physiology that he's more likely to get hurt, experience a decline in his skills and become a serious albatross on defense.

What really intrigues me is why the Dodgers even continue to discuss it with him. It's clear that no other club wants to adopt this particular can of worm larvae. Manny would make most sense on an AL club with dreams of contention and a DH need -- the Angels jump to mind -- and none of them has been reported ringing Boras' cell.

Manny's lack of enthusiasm for Spring Training is well-known. He may very well be stalling as much for a few extra vacation weeks as for a bigger contract. But Boras had better be careful lest some new competition enter the baseball labor market.

With Barry Bonds' trial now delayed past the end of the '09 season, any team willing to take on a migraine who can rake now has another option. Bonds probably can't play 150 games, as Manny can, and his personality issues affect clubhouse relationships, while Manny's only sho9rt-circuit management sleep patterns. But a team balking at paying $50 million over two years for Manny might be willing to drop $2 million for one year of Bonds.

I'm not proposing that the Dodgers head that way. Adding Manny, even at 90% of his average performance, would make them the favorite in the weak NL West. But I think they'd be crazy to add one thin dime to their offer.

HI: I Wish I'd Thought of It

I love Jayson Stark. I think he's a really good writer who sees the trees through the forest. He's positive and temperate and loves the game of baseball.

But he deserved this. I highly recommend this article, and Fangraphs in general, for anyone who wants to understand baseball better.

Pudge, Mr Selig Will See You Now

At the risk of belaboring a subject that's seen more labor than Nadya Suleman, I see the commish has summoned a Mr. Rodriguez, two members of his legal posse and none of his cousins to a private tete-a-tete to hash out some steroid -related issues.

Apparently the baseball brain trust is shocked in a Captain Renault sort of way that one of its stars used drugs in an attempt to improve his performance six years ago. Except for the small detail that league offices have been in possession of Mr. Rodriguez's name all this time, it's easy to understand why it's imperative that they question him now.

No doubt the rug in MLB headquarters will be wearing thin this Spring as the other 103 players, whose names have also been known to the Selig Administration, march to and fro under orders to reveal all.

It's a brilliant PR stunt that serves to obscure the fact that baseball currently has the most comprehensive drug testing program of any of the major sports. And that another exciting season is about to start.

Leading Off: #5 In A Series

Who's a better leadoff hitter, Willy Taveras, who batted .251 without power last year and stole 68 bases in 75 attempts, or Jason Giambi, who hit .247 with 32 homers and two steals and runs slower than a stocking?

Well, if you're looking for speed on the basepaths, Taveras is the easy choice. But if you are, the question is, why?

The purpose of a leadoff hitter is to get someone on base in front of the big hitters in the lineup. In that regard, Taveras reached base safely 161 times in 530 trips to the plate last year. The technical term for this is "blecch." To his credit, he turned many of his one-base safeties (singles, walks and HBP) into two-bases, but that hardly atones for a .308 on-base percentage.

Even after his 32 home runs, Giambi got himself on base 36 more times than Taveras in '08 and consumed fewer outs, giving the batters behind him more opportunities to create runs. Certainly he might clog the bases on occasion, and leading him off would reduce the number of multi-run homers he hits, but it's hard to see how that would offset 36 extra scoring opportunities.

Maybe because he could be better utilized in the middle of the lineup, Giambi isn't the better pick here, but if he's not, it's by a lot smaller margin than you thought when you heard the choices, right? And if not Giambi, then how about Conor Jackson of Arizona, who stole 10 bases, but reached base safely 48 more times than Taveras, consumed fewer outs and hit just 12 home runs? Or Yunel Escobar, a 10-homer guy who got caught in five of his seven steal attempts, but reached safely 41 more times and made fewer outs? Or two or three guys on Taveras' own team, the Rockies, like Ryan Spilborghs, whose .407 on base average came with six dingers in half a year's at-bats?

The point is, we have this imprint in our minds about what a leadoff hitter should look like -- speed without power. But the most important attribute of a leadoff hitter is his ability to get on base, which makes guys like Willy Taveras really poor choices. An outfielder with a .604 OPS should bat eighth -- if anywhere. Taveras, because of his stellar base stealing and defense, may merit a spot in the lineup, but not at the head of it.

The speed myth has been passed down into baseball legend, and it takes some hard thinking to recognize that although we've always done it that way, we can now see empirically that it's wrong.

All ARod On Steroids Radio

As I write this, the local sports talk stations have become the All ARod On Steroids stations, the way my favorite music station played all John Lennon songs the day he died. The difference is, Lennon died that day, and he was the only person to die in that particular event.

In ARod's case, assuming there is a case, his positive test took place six years ago and he was among 103 other Major Leaguers to turn up traces of steroids in their blood. We've known all along that 8-10% of players had tested positive. It was the justification for individual drug testing in the first place.

We're acting now as ifwe believed that only scrubs were involved. If only the Adam Hyzdus and Mike Defelices of the game had boned up, we wouldn't be crediting steroids with improved performance.

Even then, the question has to be asked: so what? Steroids weren't against the rules prior to '03. If ARod juiced before '03 and has tested clean since, what's the problem? The system works, right?

That ARod may have tested positive in the preseason of '03 tells us little about what he did in '02 and before. Let's see if we can detect a chemical boost in his performance from his the record. The .298/.396/.600 line are his 2003 stats.

BA     OBP   SLG  OPS+
.358  .414  .631  160
.300  .350  .496  120
.310  .360  .560  136
.285  .357  .586  134
.316  .420  .606  162
.318  .399  .622  160
.300  .392  .623  158
.298  .396  .600  147
.286  .375  .512  131
.321  .421  .610  173
.290  .392  .523  134
.314  .422  .645  177
.302  .392  .573  150

Well, he definitely dipped in '04 to just 31% better than average, so he must have stopped doping then. And that proves that he was benefiting from performance-enhancement in the four seasons of .600+ slugging averages.

Except he proceeded to win the MVP in '05 and '07, recording the highest slugging average of his career in the latter, after baseball began suspending players for positive drug tests. So there's little evidence of anything in his record.

If talk of steroids gives you the vapors, here's a suggestion. Assume anyone who was any good between 1998 and 2005 was hopped up. Every MVP, every All-Star, every 30-HR hitter, every 200-strikeout pitcher. Now the next time a name comes out, you'll hardly notice.

It's instructive to reflect on that period in the world outside baseball and remember that Americans elected and re-elected a President who did blow and got caught drunk driving in years prior. And there's nothing in the record to suggest his performance got any enhancement.

l

No Chiefs; Too Many Indians

Over the last six years, the most disappointing team in baseball, with the possible exception of the pre-Manny Dodgers, has been the Cleveland Indians. They've managed to under-perform their expectations every year, including 2007 when they won 96 games, the AL Central and a post-season series against the Yankees before blowing a three games to one lead on the Red Sox in the championship series, losing 30-5 in the final three games.

Last year, they were the co-favorites with Detroit in the AL Central, only to face elimination by Memorial Day and trade their best player, CC Sabathia by summer.

This year, the Indians will not disappoint. Low expectations will make sure of that.

The Indians have the following shortcomings in 2009: they have no starting pitching, no relief pitching and no hitting. This may be a problem.

First, the offense. Their man-beast slugger, Travis Hafner, hurt his everything the last two years and has become a shadow of a shell of a chalk outline of his old self. The Tribe's best hitters are their centerfielder and shortstop, the terrific Grady Sizemore and phonetically-challenged Jhonny Peralta. After that, they don't have a single hitter they can count on at the offensive positions of corner infield, outfield and DH.

Unless Ryan Garko finds himself again at first, Andy Marte finally lives up to a portion of his billing at third and ousts newly-acquired Mark Derosa, the evil doctor who created Pronk recharges Hafner's bat and magna-prospect Matt LaPorta usurps leftfield, this is going to continue to be one sickle-celled lineup.

Which could make for an ugly season on the lake, because the cupboard is bare up on the hill. Cliff Lee can only start every fifth game, and even then, things can't go anywhere but down from his phenomenal '08. After that, things fall off the Cliff. Do Carl Pavano, Aaron Laffey, Fausto Carmona (and his 5.2-4.3 K/BB rate) and Jeremy Sowers strike fear in the hearts of White Sox hitters? Um, no.

And if the starting corps is suspect, the relief troop is under indictment. Though the much-needed addition of Kerry Wood will solidify the ninth inning -- as long as Wood is more oak than balsa -- innings six through eight could be trouble. Now, bullpens are notoriously fickle; who knows, Jensen Lewis, Rafael Perez and Masa Kobayashi could light it up from the pen in '09, but that's not the way to bet.

There's abit of an up-for-grabs quality to the AL Central this year because Chicago and Minnesota weren't really that good and Detroit and Cleveland weren't really that bad last season. The Indians aren't yet a lost cause. But unless someone brings hope and change to the party, their future is looking kinda Dennis Kucinich.

Hmmmm...

Major League Baseball has re-tested Barry Bonds' blood sample from the anonymous testing of 2003 and revealed publicly that it had steroids in it...and they're upset about him cheating?

Michael Phelps put the lives of everyone around him in danger when he drove drunk and they want to prosecute him for smoking weed at a party?

Hmmmm.

The First Robin League

The Hot Stove League is threatening to drag into the First Robin League as major free agents remain on the market. The economic decline has obviously played a role there, but there must be something else at work.

Three of the most notable free agents still available are Adam Dunn, Bobby Abreu and Manny Ramirez. I picked these three particularly because they're all outfielders and, in the case of Manny and Dunn, possess all the grace on land of a penguin. Here are their performance from last year:

Player G R 2B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS+ HBP GIDP
Ramirez 153 102 36 37 121 3 0 87 124 .332 .430 .601 164 11 17
Dunn----158 79 23 40 100 2 1 122 164 .236 .386 .513 129 7 7
Abreu---156 100 39 20 100 22 11 73 109 .276 .371 .471 120 1 14

(OPS+ is a measure of on base percentage plus slugging average compared to league average. An OPS of 129 is 29% better than league average, which is excellent. An OPS of 164 is MVP territory.)

Manny and agent Scott Boras seem to have painted themselves into a corner, demanding five years and bailout-sized dollars. Ramirez is still a one-man offensive wrecking crew, to be sure, but he's offensive in other ways and young children should avert their eyes when he's afield. The idea of team chemistry is vastly over-rated, but front offices know that bringing him on requires buying Tylenol in bulk. And of course, he's 37 and would be 42 by the end of a five-year deal. Signing him to anything more than two years is sheer folly, and it helps to have a centerfielder who can yell loud enough to wake the leftfielder when the ball is struck his way.

The case of Adam Dunn is an enigma. Ripped by Blue Jays GM JP Ricciardi last season, he is viewed as lackadaisical and inert in the field and has generated little interest around the majors. This is a 28-year-old who has recorded 40 or more home runs and .365 OBP or higher each of the last five seasons. Six-and-a-half foot boppers like Dunn don't tend to age well, but he should continue to provide terror at the plate for the next three years, at least. Bat him after Jose Reyes and David Wright and ahead of Carlos Beltran (or the other way around) and enjoy the basepath merry-go-round.

Apparently some AL clubs would like to sign him to DH but he has rejected moving off left field. That certainly limits his appeal, but there are still plenty of teams that can swallow is defense for 40 HRs and a .386 OBP. For an interesting and spot-on Dunn reckoning, link below to MLB.com.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090120&content_id=3750928&vkey=news_ml

Bobby Abreu is neither defensive liability nor slugger, but he's still an impressive offensive asset. Because he seemed to fall off the table following the '05 Home Run Derby, it's easy to assume he's older than 34. This is a guy who batted safely more than 39% of the time for nine straight years until 2006. Whether his decline is age-related, Yankee-related or Bronx-related we'll soon find out if someone else signs him. Unlike Dunn and Manny, Abreu has a howitzer of an arm and thus has some defensive value as a right fielder. A lot of teams can use this guy.

Of course, the other side of the equation may be the sticking point. Dunn made $13 million, Abreu $16 million and Ramirez $19 million last year and they may all be looking for raises to compensate for the 35% decline in their stock portfolios. The market -- yes, even the baseball labor market -- does seem to have contracted this year, as evidenced by Andy Pettite and Jason Varitek's flashy new pay cuts. Dunn, Abreu and Ramirez may need time to accept that before they sign less lucrative deals. Donations in their behalf can be sent in care of my home address.