Attaining Happ-Iness

The blind squirrel syndrome may have afflicted Astros GM Ed Wade this week when Roy Oswalt's trade request prompted him to fold the tent on this season. Of no value to the dying embers of the franchise in 2010, Oswalt brought back second-year hurler JA Happ, a pair of prospects and $12 million in contract relief from the Phillies.

One of the prospects from that deal (indirectly, by way of a second swap with Toronto) is a first base OBP machine destined to spell Lance Berkman when he is inevitably recycled to a contender for more prospects and off-loaded salary.

In sum, Wade is finally  recognizing that his franchise needs a complete overhaul, not a few patches. Anyone else on the roster, possibly excepting Michael Bourn and Wandy Rodriguez, whom they can ship out for cash or youngsters, moves this woeful outfit in the proper direction.

There are those cruising Blogomundo who can evaluate the prospects Oswalt returns, but that's almost always a flimsy proposition. The word "if" is always highly operative. We do know a few things about Happ, though.

JA Happ has tossed 217 innings in his young major league career, the vast majority of them in 2009, and his results have been outstanding. He is 14-5 3.11 in Philly's rich offensive environment, a value to his team of 5.5 wins compared to a fifth starter type. If that's the real JA Happ, at 27 years of age, yowzah!

However, the prediction gods are not sold. Happ enjoyed a .270 batting average on balls in play against him last year (compared to about .300 on average), watched only half the expected number of fly balls against him leave the park and stranded 85% of his runners. None of these seems particularly sustainable. In addition, Happ is only nominally acquainted with the strikeout, meaning he is especially susceptible to a regression to the norm. Baseball Prospectus crunched the numbers and found that his performance rates more like a 4.97 ERA pitcher than a 3.11.

These considerations are generally valuable and shed new light on results that looked starkly different in the darkness of ignorance. However, they are not destiny, so we'll see what happens in Houston. In the meantime, if nothing else, the Astros have come to understand their problem, act on it, and save themselves beaucoup Benjamins. A few more acorns and they'll cease to be a blind squirrel.

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A Long Strange Trip

Dear Bud,

If you're wondering why people growing up on the web and Facebook and Twitter and instant gratific -- is the game over yet? -- are bored with baseball, take a look at the seventh inning in the Giants-Marlins tilt on Monday.

Keeping in mind that both teams are on the periphery of the race and sport young studs that may form the frame of a strong edifice in the future. If you're a denizen of the Golden or Sunshine states, there's reason to invest some time and attention in your homeboys.

Ricky Nolasco comes out to start the bottom o' the seventh,  with visiting Florida ahead 3-0. He retires Juan Uribe and walks Pat Burrell, an offense so gross that it prompts  manager Edwin Rodriguez to bolt from the dugout for a chat, eventually pointing his left arm towards the bullpen. Taylor Tankersly trots in and fires his warm-up tosses.

Aaron Rowand turns around Tankersly's second pitch and it's quickly 3-2. Rodriguez argues its foulness and the umps review it, determining they made the right call. The skipper leaves the field, the PA announces Freddy Sanchez as the next batter and Rodriguez bounds back up the dugout steps for a tete-a-tete with Tankersly before signaling for northpaw Jose Veras. 

I know what you're thinking: yippee! Another pitching change, my favorite thing! Now we can assault the fans in the stadium with another insipid videoboard race among cartoon cheese products while the television audience is treated to the 11th airing today of a beer commercial. 

Sanchez singles on the second 94 mph fastball he sees. Bruce Bochy yanks Chris Ray and pinch hits Nate Scheurholz, who flies out. Next up, promising rookie Andres Torres, who watches two pick-off attempts, two strikes and four balls before walking to first base.

It's now been six minutes since Rodriguez has set foot on the field, a situation remedied by another conference on the hill. Jose Veras departs for a well-deserved shower, having dispensed 10 pitches and two throws to first. Brian Sanchez takes the long walk to meet with Rodriguez before limbering up with his requisite warm-up throws. 

At this point, the crowd has, en masse, checked Lindsay Lohan's Facebook status. Incarcerated. They wonder what Justin Bieber is up to, or perhaps, what Justin Bieber is.

Sanchez makes quick work of Edgar Renteria, who whiffs on four pitches. His brief tenure at the plate is a counterpoint to a half inning that dragged on for 27 minutes and involved four pitchers, only one of whom relinquished any runs.

In other words, the Marlins managed a bit of reverse alchemy, transforming an exciting 3-2 contest into a cure for insomnia and costing everyone paying a babysitter an extra Lincoln. The half-frame took nearly a half-hour without even a lead change.

Aren't you the commissioner who casts a wary eye on further replays for fear of lengthening the tedium beyond three hours? How about this instead: ban replacing any pitcher who didn't start the inning. That would end the endless shuffling on the mound that sends my wife to her book just as the contest should be building to a crescendo. 

Next, limit pick-off moves so that pitchers spend their time moving the action forward, rather than sideways. Now you'll have enough time to add instant replay and still get dad home in time to tuck in his kids.

Baseball is an entertainment product. You forget that at the game's peril. Boring may have worked for you in your car-dealing career, but doesn't sell today, Bud. Ditch the dull, drawn-out inaction and the committee meetings, the self-molestation and genuflection between pitches, and replace them with baseball. I think you'll find the Tweeting crowd a little more receptive.

Love,

Waldo the Braindrizzler

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You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

Andre Dawson enters the Hall of Fame today without altering its accounts much in either direction. He is the quintessential borderline Hall of Famer.

The raw data puts Dawson in the Hall. He alone, save for spectacular company -- Barry Bonds and Willie Mays -- hit 400 homers and stole 300 bases. An all-around performer, he won eight Gold Gloves, an MVP, finished second twice, made eight All-Star games and earned Rookie of the Year in 1977. In addition, he played his first 11 seasons in the cavern in Montreal, which simultaneously dampened his batting exploits and his knee cartilage. Make no mistake, voters do the mental math on two full years' worth of injuries that drained some of his impact.

Peel the skin on his career and the flaws emerge. His .323 lifetime OBP is the worst by an outfielder in Cooperstown and demonstrates that whatever else his talents, The Hawk was below average at the single most important regular player skill -- avoiding outs. He compensated by slugging .500 just four times over 21 years and overall hit 19% better than the average player, adjusting for his ballpark. Because that compares him to second basemen and catchers as well as outfielders, it's not Hall-level impressive. By way of comparison, Jim Rice, whom I've argued was clearly not Hall quality, hit 28% better than average. Is Jim Edmonds a Hall of Famer? He's hit 32% better than average.

In addition, Dawson padded the balance sheet by hanging around long after his skills had departed. His last four years in Boston and Florida got him into the 400-homer club despite failing to contribute wins in either city.

Where Andre Dawson really makes his HoF case is on the basepaths and in the field. The scouts and stats agree that he was an exceptional centerfielder, though the objective data suggests he lost his mojo in right, where he actually spent more of his career. He also swiped 314 bases at a 74% rate, which adds 84 runs of value to his bottom line.

All of which puts Dawson on the teeter-totter for me, a better laureate than Jim Rice, worse than Tim Raines, who hit significantly better and added 500 runs on the base paths. (To be fair, he wasn't in the same stratosphere as Dawson defensively.) But the writers gave him their imprimatur, so he's a Hall of Famer and no one, not even some amateur stat geek who couldn't hit a 40 mph curve ball, can take that away from him. And for all the electrons spilled over his admission, it doesn't add or detract from the Hall of Fame much at all.

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Curve Balls In Alpharetta?

Just back from Atlanta where I exposed my baseball-ignorant bride to a first-place tilt with the Padres at the Ted. She read a book starting in the seventh inning. Philistine.

The home team took two of three, largely because, while both clubs sport deep starting pitching, superb relief and excellent defense, the Braves bring bats to their contests.

One player whom I was particularly interested in watching was freshly minted Native American, Alex Gonzalez. Atlanta swapped their uber-talented young shortstop, Yunel Escobar, for the bloated half-year stats of a 33-year-old journeyman. On the face of it, Braves GM Frank Wren got taken for a ride on MARTA. But there's more to this trade than meets the eye.

Escobar is brimming with ability -- a bazooka arm and on base talent has earned him 12 wins over a replacement player in the two full years of his career prior to 2010. In the first half of this year, his VORP tumbled 180 points and his longball power evaporated.

In exchange, the Braves bit on a guy with 12 years of .295 OBP and intermittent power who suddenly in 2010 started banging the ball around the Rogers Centre. It sounds like the ultimate buy high/sell low proposition that made teams like the Pirates and Astros the Triple-A powerhouses they are today. Didn't you think the Braves are smarter than that?

They are. The mercurial Escobar is a prodigal child who was killing Atlanta defensively and causing agita in the clubhouse. Worst of all, managerial icon Bobby Cox had consumed all the Yunel he could handle, and was ready for a blander course that he could more easily stomach.

No doubt Gonzalez is a short term solution. But for a team with World Series aspirations, he brings proven defensive aptitude at a key position and a hale-fellow clubhouse persona. Moreover, what Bobby wants, Bobby gets, for as long as he fills out the lineup card. No one's going to argue with a first-ballot Hall of Fame skipper.

In the game I watched, AGon demonstrated in vivid hues how a guy can play 13 Major League seasons collecting outs at a 70.5% rate. Three of his at-bats were American Legion quality, including a couple where he chased sliders into Gwinnet. His all-or-nothing approach may pay dividends in Toronto, but it'll simply be all nothing if he applies it to the Senior Circuit.

On the other hand, Cox didn't have to reach for the antacid every time a ball traveled his shortstop's way. (Actually, Cox was serving a one-game suspension, so he didn't even have to watch. But you get the point.) In a pennant race, there's a lot to be said for a team's ongoing emotional health.

So what seemed like a poorly-conceived sacrifice of future value for a league-average present may turn out to be more evil Bobby Cox genius. The converse, however, is not necessarily the reverse. This deal still benefits the Blue Jays, who have less chance of beating the Yankees, et. al. than Robert E. Lee. (In fact, Lee took an early lead and kept it close longer.) They might as well flip their rent-a-shortstop for a chance to sip at the emerging star cup at below-market prices.

There is one small coda to this: In his first 30 plate appearances for Atlanta, AGon's been raking to the tune of .370/.433/.519. Maybe opposing pitchers ought to consider throwing more sliders into the Atlanta suburbs.

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A Net Deficit, By George

Much ink has been spilled in remembrance of George Steinbrenner and I have little to add to the discussion of his life or personality. He never sounded like someone I'd want to know or work for, and it always seemed to me that his episodic acts of generosity were a kind of green-washing of his reputation, image and life's work.

Of course, I've never been a Yankee fan. Anyone who is ought to hold The Boss in some esteem, since he spent and willed his franchise to unequaled success during a 35-year tenure at the helm of the team. 

Well, tangentially, that's not quite accurate. Steinbrenner's impetuousness and immaturity plunged the franchise into a dark hole from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. Only when he acquiesced to the urgent and incessant pleas of the team's professional staff to unclench his grubby paws from the day-to-day operations did it rebound to its traditional position atop the sport.

Where it resides today, much to the detriment of baseball. Say whatever else you like about Steinbrenner, while he was leveraging his market position to maximize revenues and build championships in the Bronx, he was simultaneously pricing out much of the rest of baseball. Teams in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Oakland, Tampa Bay, San Diego, etc. must compete on a national (or continental, to be exact) labor market using mostly local revenues. 

To wit: the Tampa Bay Rays, finally ascendant after years of futility, now have a roster of great players entering their arbitration years. Their earnings peaks are still years ahead, but they will begin commanding 40%-60%-80% of their free market value. Nonetheless, with a payroll one-third of the Yankees', Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has announced that labor costs are unsustainable and must be cut next year. If the Rays carry out that plan, they will be forced to gut the team after just three years of competitiveness. It will be nearly impossible for them to challenge for the division with a diminished payroll. This is George Steinbrenner's legacy.

Steinbrenner famously answered, when asked about revenue-sharing in baseball, that he didn't buy the Kansas City Royals. No, but his team can't play itself, so he's in business with the Kansas City Royals. The Royals' television package with Fox Sports KC nets the team an estimated $3 million. The Yankees' TV contract is opaque because the team owns 40% of the network, but their share is estimated at $1.2 billion. This is an apples and oranges comparison, but if the Yankee broadcasts on YES are responsible for just a third of the revenue, that's $400 million. In other words, a $200 million team payroll represents one half the TV revenues alone. In KC, TV revenues cover just six percent of even a meager $50 million team payroll.

The free market, to which Steinbrenner genuflected when it served him, would suggest that the Kansas City Royals -- or any other franchise struggling to keep pace with the Yankees -- simply move to New York. With 20 million people in the metro area, the Big Apple can certainly support three teams, and probably more. The Milwaukee Brewers, who serve a metro area of barely 1.8 million people, would be better off as one of 10 Major League teams in the tri-state area. But Steinbrenner always used his market monopoly (well, duopoly, to be exact) to prevent any other club from dividing his fan base. The Yankees have the ability through baseball rules, which codify an otherwise illegal trust, to prevent a Brooklyn franchise, a Long Island franchise, a northern New Jersey franchise, etc. (Congress allows baseball, uniquely, to enjoy exemption from anti-trust laws.)

The result is that it must suck to be a fan of half the teams in baseball. They can hope their favorite nine will be competitive now and then, but not for long. Ultimately, their teams can't compete with the Yankees, or even the Red Sox, Mets, Cardinals, Dodgers, Angels, etc. Worse, it sucks to be a baseball fan. There's just nothing interesting about the richest team in the capital of the world buying the best players, assembling a Hall of Fame lineup and winning the World Series. 

Now, revenues are not destiny. Certainly some low-revenue franchises, like the A's of the '90s and the Twins today, manage to compete at a high level for a while guided by smart management that is committed to winning. Some low-revenue franchises simply ought to be committed. K.C. and Pittsburgh (at least in previous years), reinvested their luxury tax money back into their owners' pockets. And some big market clubs, like the Mets and Astros, fritter away their advantages on bad baseball investments. 

So the Yankees deserve a lot of credit for the acumen of their professional staff. Since the Pavano-Wright debacles, they have adeptly executed their championship plan. (Even there, one would expect the richest franchise to buy the best talent for the front office.) They have assembled by far the best team and are first in line for the best available players. That ought to gratify every Yankee fan.

It ought to infuriate every baseball fan, though. And those two ideas, in a nutshell, are what George Steinbrenner left behind.

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Halftime Hardware

All-Star Break means taking stock, so let's examine the season at mid-life and pick the winners, losers and kncukleheads.

It's been a sub-par half-year for the best player in baseball. Albert Pujols' .416 OBP would be his worst since 2005, his .992 OPS would be the second worst of his career and his .332 "True Average," a catch-all seamhead measure adjusted to look like a batting average that purports to encompass total offensive value including baserunning and considering ballpark and pitching faced, would be the worst since his second season. Consequently, Price Albert is merely an MVP contender. Were he tearing it up as usual, he'd have lapped the field. 

It's hard to argue with Ubaldo Jimenez as the MVP of the Spring and early Summer in the NL. The Rockies are winning 89% of his starts and 48% of their other games. Luck and good defensive support play may be on his dance card every start, but Jimenez is pitching for the same team as his mound mates. His contribution to that gap -- no matter how incomplete -- sounds award-worthy. For what it's worth, sabermetric measures suggest Jimenez has been a little less effective than Roy Halladay & Josh Johnson.

If you're like me, you prefer to weigh your apples and oranges separately. That would leave Ubaldo to the Cy Young competition and pit Pujols against Joey Votto, David Wright, et. al. That particular trio ranks 1-2-3 in value over replacement player, which considers position, but not defense. They are close enough in VORP to justify elevating Wright's excellent defense at third over Pujols' superb glovework on the corner and leaving Votto behind.

The picture is more muddled in the Junior Circuit. Outfielder Josh Hamilton (.346/.390/.625, 47.2 VORP), first baseters Miguel Cabrera (.346/.423/.651, 46.8 VORP) and Justin Morneau (.345/.437/.618, 45.5 VORP), and keystoner Robby Cano (.336/.389/.566, 42.5 VORP) are the main options.  Cabrera is clearly the best hitter, but contributes the least with the leather. Cano is plainly swings the least lethal bat, but is most valuable facing the hitter. No one would have to justify a vote for Morneau or Hamilton either. It's worth accounting for offense-inflating ballparks in NY and Dallas, and recognizing that pitchers sing God Bless Comerica. What seems most likely, anyway, is that Cabrera maintains a stratospheric batting average while Hamilton suffers from mean-regression, making the choice a bit less Solomonic.

On to Cy Young. The above-referenced Jimenez  is an obvious NL choice, though Johnson (1.70 ERA, 4.39K/BB), Halladay (2.19 ERA, 6.74 K/BB) and Adam Wainwright (2.11 ERA, 3.63 K/BB) could proudly hoist the trophy -- if there is one -- guilt free. Halladay offers more endurance and that level of accomplishment in a home stadium that plays to the grand slam crowd, though it must be nice never to have to face his mates Chase, Ryan, Jayson, Shane, Jimmy, et. al. Johnson pitches in front of an infield anchored -- and I do mean anchored -- by Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla. So pick your poison, or just wait for the rest of the season to play out.

Again in the AL, the view is more opaque. Cliff Lee (2.54 ERA, 15.17 K/BB, 10 of 13 Quality Starts) would be my history-making choice; he'd have to earn the award with one team in the first half and another post-ASB. Jon Lester (2.78 ERA, 2.82 K/BB, 13 of 18 with Fenway as home base), Felix Hernandez (2.88 ERA, 3.12 K/BB, 16 of 19) and others jostle for position at the front of the line.

Armando Gallaraga and Jim Leyland share the Gentleman Merit Badge for proving that you can have a perfect game even if you give up a hit. In the same vein, Jim Joyce wins the Don Zimmer Real Man Apology Award. Adrian Gonzalez earns the Snow White Trophy for playing with seven dwarfs in San Diego. The LeBron James Ribbon goes to the Cleveland Indians, who have saddened the people of Northeast Ohio by staying. The late George Steinbrenner takes the Warren Buffet plaque to eternity for plunking down $187,000 of his own schwag in an $8.7 mil play in 1974 for the Yankees, now worth $1.5 billion.

And then there's the the Idiot Award shared by all of us. Or at least all of us who thought the Reds were also-rans, the Padres were cellar-dwellers, the Mets were done, the Phillies were shoo-ins and the Mariners were contenders. And we'll earn it all over again unless we acknowledge that we might be right when it's all said and done. So let's just play the second half.

 I can't wait until Thursday.
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Not A Dilemma At All

As everyone in baseball has noted, Mets skipper Jerry Manuel has a dilemma on his hands with the return of Carlos Beltran after the All-Star break. He'll have four fine outfielders for only three spots. Inserting Beltran means someone who has lit it up will have to sit.

It's a nice dilemma, except for one thing: it's no dilemma at all.

Most of the discussion around Beltran's return from knee injury concerns his centerfield replacement, Angel Pagan. Pagan has been the Mets' second best hitter, behind David Wright, and contributes other fine attributes, like 19 steals in 24 attempts and solid defense in a difficult defensive position. Pagan's laudable.304/.364/.457 performance at the plate looks a lot like last year's breakout season, which suggests the 29-year-old switch hitter is the real thing.

Another real thing is Jason Bay, despite a relative dearth of long balls.  He's smacked 30+ out four times in his career and .279/.375/.512 career line, so it's not like Manuel is lifting him and his big contract to keep Angel Pagan in the game.

Jeff Francoeur, on the other hand, is very much NOT the real thing. He is Broke-A-Cola. He is the poster boy for sabermetric disembowelment. Francoeur is everything showy that doesn't matter and a zero in the shadowy parts of the game that actually affect the score. Manuel ought to have yanked him from the lineup before Beltran recovered, much less once Beltran is ready to patrol center.

Wait a second, you say. He hits for power and sometimes average, runs well and swipes bases, and has a rifle in right field. He's a studly young buck and by all accounts a good guy. What could be bad about that? I hear he like long walks on the beach and supports the fight against child abuse too.

Let's take a look at "Frenchy's" resume. (You know, some baseball nicknames are pure genius -- the Big Unit and the Big Hurt come to mind -- while others are so inane and soulless they should be banned. I just used one of those. Never again, I promise.) Though Francoeur has batted ..283 in 625 plate appearances since joining the Mets, he's trotted to first a grand total of 30 times. It's harder to walk him than Ron Kovic. His OBP of .322 just downright stinks, and it's an improvement over his lifetime rate.

Francoeur has bopped 18 homers and 34 doubles in that time, which keeps you in the lineup if your OBP is .350, or if you're a second baseman. And while he's got a whipsaw right arm, his defense is certainly not the equal of either the Beltran who got hurt or of Pagan. Over the last three years, Francoeur has been exactly a replacement-level outfielder at the plate. However, he's a fine pinch runner and a late inning defensive replacement for Bay, if you think that's an upgrade.

Fox color analyst Kevin Millar observed about Francoeur that "this guy is a ballplayer." It's true: you take one look at him play and you think he's got it all. But today's analyst community has managed to get beyond the muscles and the sweet swings to measure the abilities that really contribute to success, and plate discipline is at the top of the list. His complete lack of it is Jeff Francoeur's downfall. Jerry, this is an easy call: sit him.

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Smelling A Rat

This is a scenario that's no longer possible, but it's fun to imagine. It's the kind of scam that Billy Beane used to perpetrate on the rest of baseball during the '90s, before front offices started realizing that scouts without stats -- that is, development without research --  is Laurel without Hardy.

The run-scoring environment in San Diego is so depressed that it distorts the value of hitters and pitchers. Wade LeBlanc, a skooch above average in the first half this year, sports a 3.30 ERA despite nearly four walks and just six strikeouts per nine frames. Catcher Nick Hundley has been one of the better backstops in the league this year, despite a .263 BA, 5 HR 26 RBI. His meager .337 OBA, with half his plate appearances coming at Petco, is actually a boon to the Pads.

Clinging to a tenuous lead in the NL West, how might GM Kevin Towers goose his lineup? How about by exploiting the reality of perception? If he could deal one of his red herring hurlers for a significant bat -- particularly in the outfield -- he could make his team significantly better.

The best trading partner would be one in a similarly dampened offensive environment, like the denizens of AT&T Park, Dodger Stadium or Citi Field. Their hitters' prowess is similarly understated by the numbers, so what looks like a fair trade statistically would vastly benefit San Diego. Or, they could upgrade their pitching by filching an under-rated arm from a homerdome like the BoB or Yankee Stadium.

This is what Beane did repeatedly for Oakland during the '90s, when only a handful of teams could distinguish Bill James from LeBron James. He swapped closers with big save numbers for hitters with low batting averages but high on-base percentages. He traded RBI collectors for pitchers with good walk-strikeout ratios and bad won-loss records. He cashed in speed merchant out-machines for discerning thieves with lower SB totals. In each case, the value of the former was overblown, the latter under-appreciated. (He did other things too, mostly involving payroll-depression, but that's not relevant here.)

A decade later, that just won't work. Every general manager in baseball understands the importance of context and luck, or has someone on staff who does. There isn't a team that can't see through that ruse. Today, the inefficiencies in the marketplace, which Beane drove a truck through in the 90s, are wafer-thin.

Still, it's a fun exercise. Imagine, for example, if Towers could induce Arizona to take LeBlanc and his .330 ERA for Ian Kennedy, mired in a 4-7, 4.12 season. Towers would know that at Bank One Ballpark, where strikeouts go to die and home runs live like kings, Kennedy and his eight Ks per nine are a highly valuable commodity.

Alas, at least for San Diegans (and Tijuanans), the baseball consumer protection board prohibits this sort of fraud. Front offices smell rats like this a mile away, even if their fans can't.

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The Worldwide Leader In Drivel

I teach my college students that there is precious little partisan political bias in network news, and anyone who says otherwise is just revealing their own personal partisan political bias. (I exempt Fox News, which is pretty overt in its bias, and therefore somewhat insulated from the criticism. I hear MSNBC tilts in the other direction, but I've never seen it.) Most reporters have professional pride and the ability to be fair, if not to cover all facets of every issue.

The major bias in news, I tell them, is in favor of news. Duh.

The major bias in non-news networks is for profit, and nowhere has that been more egregiously demonstrated than by ESPN in its lunatic ramblings about LeBron James.

I wondered how the network could become so unhinged that for three weeks it spent 60% of its radio programming -- I mean 60% of the 40% that's not commercials -- endlessly conjecturing about James's intentions. Considering that no "reporter" or "analyst" had a shred of information useful to the story, it seemed inconceivable that ESPN could dedicate such endless drivel to this non-story. I was especially amused by the "predictions" that were being dealt like poker cards, predictions based on wisps of air, as if parsing the intentions of the Soviet-era Kremlin. Only one person knew LeBron's heart and that person wasn't telling.

My musings came to a head on Tuesday, when ESPN radio's morning show literally chucked its coverage of baseball, World Cup and all else sporting to dedicate its airwaves to non-stop dead-horse beatings for the entire show. I understand the occasional Chris Berman and Dick Vitale, but had an entire network checked into Bellevue?

Then it all became clear. It turns out that James had convinced station brass to run a prime time one-hour extravaganza during which he would reveal his destination (and God knows what else for 60 whole minutes. Well, 32 minutes, after commercials.) In fact, ESPN hadn't been covering a story; it had been promoting an upcoming special on its own network.

Which makes me wonder, how much Connecticut spittle would have been projected over this issue had Fox Sports televised it instead. In other words, what was the real news value of LeBron's free agency. Maybe I'm just a hopeless Association-hater, but it's hard for me to imagine that even 25% of the actual airtime wasted would have been so dedicated, and I think something more like 8% is more accurate. It would be a shocking indictment of this infuriating network, if only it weren't shocking at all.

Word is that the proceeds from sponsorships for that hour were going to charity, but even if true, ESPN reaped copious benefit from LeBron's largess, pumping the airwaves with its station promos, reinforcing its brand, etc., etc. So it turns out that I was just a prop in the scenery during the three-week run-up, not a customer to be entertained. Good thing I began switching to public radio to hear actual news instead.

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Who Do They Use for Bobblehead Night?

There is a team in the National League that has one good hitter. One. That player has produced more value to the team than the batting order's next five best batsmen. Combined.

Of the 12 other everyday players with at least 100 at bats, not a single one has managed an OBP above .338. That particular player has a .348 SLG. Which puts him at about the midpoint on the team. Only two semi-regulars, besides the star, have SLG above .400. The second most prodigious offensive performer on this ragtag outfit is a platooned catcher with a .258/.337/.436 line, which fails to note that he's attempted five steals and slid into a tag each time.

The trio patrolling the outfield breaks out the big wood to the OPS tune of .730, .646 and .717. An average starting outfielder racks up a .790 OPS. Put into stats that your local sportswriter would understand, your standard outfield averages a .280 BA and 25 dingers. Our protaganists' triumvirate hits .230 with 12 homers.

Who are these goose egg collectors -- the chronically anemic Pirates? The feckless Orioles? Some Triple-A bottom feeders? The Detroit Lions? No, this battalion is in first place. By four games. With the leading run differential in the circuit.

Welcome to your 2010 San Diego Padres.

As you might imagine, Los Dads have some kinda pitching staff. Their top four starters, Mat Latos, Clayton Richard, Wade LeBlanc and Jon Garland are exploiting Petco's score-deadening qualities, with ERAs of .262, .274, .325 and .324 respectively. 

Defense, the park and luck are collaborating to dampen those ERAs. In fact, advanced measurement techniques suggest that Garland and LeBlanc particularly are swimming in water that's over their heads. It's affecting the whole mound corps: all but two hurlers on the entire squad sport ERAs over 3.30. But the defense is part of the team's equation and San Diego isn't moving to Denver anytime soon, so don't bet the house (or maybe you should, considering how much you owe on it) on those numbers fattening up much as the season marches on.

Still, if you want to know how Adrian Gonzalez's team is winning at season's midpoint with a lineup of defensive replacements, look to the relievers. One after another, the Priests send to the hill a parade of fire extinguishers. Tim Stauffer's ERA is 0.39. Ryan Webb, 1.72. Closer Heath Bell is at 1.82 and he's fanning 12 per nine innings. Luke Greggerson, the first reliever into the game most nights, is throwing golf balls. He's relinquished four hits and one walk and whiffed more than 11 batters per nine innings. His K/BB ratio is an otherworldly 8.5. That's Luke, not fLuke.

Certainly, Bud Black's charges operate in a low-run environment. Petco has proven itself the most run-suppressant park in baseball over the last six years, dampening run-scoring by 20%. That's a huge factor and it explains a lot of the numeric fun we've had above. Nonetheless, this is a wretched hitting team living in the dead-ball era and a pitching staff that's carrying the load. Even accounting for the park, four of the eight regulars produce offense below replacement level.

So the question is, can San Diego remain perched atop the NL West, and if so, how? This isn't new: they had the best record in baseball over the last 62 games last year. If GM Jed Hoyer doesn't secure a decent bat, in the outfield optimally, can the Deacons continue to win 2-1 at a .600 clip into October?  It's going to be interesting to see.

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