If Carlos Baerga and Albert Belle join the Braves lineup, we'll know for sure what's afoot in Atlanta. Until then, we see the old Cleveland Indians philosophy of locking up future stars beyond their arbitration years at play in the Home of the Braves (soon to be Marietta).
The original plan, engineered by General Manager John Hart, paid dividends for the Indians, who won six AL Central titles in seven years, made two World Series and should have won one. Hart recognized that his bevy of promising talent -- Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Charles Nagy, Belle and Baerga -- could be locked up through their most productive years with relatively low-cost contracts if he acted early.
With rampant salary inflation unabated and a new park opening in three years, Hart inked the bulk of Cleveland's future core to team-friendly extensions that bought out arbitration years and a season or two of free agency. His judgment was vindicated when all but Nagy produced beyond their contract terms and then again when Baerga turned into a pumpkin immediately upon the expiration of his.
In the meantime, The Jake (now Progressive Field) filled up for 455 consecutive games. The sellouts spilled into Canton, where fans gobbled up tickets for the Double-A Indians and a chance to see future Cleveland players.
With a similar set of circumstances, and Hart serving as a front office advisor, GM Frank Wren has committed $309 million to five prized on-field assets that will keep them in uniform for the rest of the 20-teens. The Braves now know they can build around Jason Heyward, Julio Teheran, Freddy Freeman, Andrelton Simmons and Craig Kimbrel for at least the next five years. Of the money committed, more than two-thirds will be spent after the Nocahomas unveil their new suburban home.
They also know that if any of the quintet age poorly, the team can let someone else pay gigantic sums for their decline years. In concept it's a beautiful thing. Braves fans know right now that three years from now a deft first baseman, an athletic outfielder with pop, a top-of-the-rotation starter, a slick-fielding shortstop and the best closer anyone has ever seen will anchor their roster. It's no coincidence that Atlanta sent aging free agents Brian McCann and Tim Hudson packing. Those savings have been invested back into the future.
What seems different about this round of Hart attacks is the cost. Though Simmons's signing is almost completely free of downside, some of the others -- Freeman's in particular -- feel mighty rich considering all the risk being taken by the team. The old formula for these deals -- team takes long-term risk ensuring player wealth at a discounted rate -- appears to lack some of the discount. Only if the players fulfill their potential and salary inflation continues to run unchecked will these deals appear to be no-brainers in restrospect.
Nonetheless, if you offered the entire package as a take-it-or-leave-it deal to a smart GM he would take it in a heartbeat. The new stadium will fill team coffers if the win column is well-stocked and this nucleus goes a long way towards ensuring that. Native Americans may have given away Manhattan for $24 in beads but they're redeeming themselves in the baseball front office.
25 February 2014
23 February 2014
It's Hard to Find a Stupid GM
While there are plenty of baseball fans and writers allergic to the new ideas of the sabermetric movement, there aren't any general managers left in that camp. They can't afford to be; they'll get their clocks cleaned by their more sophisticated competitors.
That one fact explains why Nelson Cruz spit the bit by declining the Rangers' qualifying $14.1 million offer to enter the free agent sweepstakes.
Cruz was banking on at least one GM salivating over his big bat (123 OPS+, primarily because he slugs 34 homers per 162 games) and inking him to a fat deal.
He may instead be firing his agent. Cruz waited out the market until pitchers and catchers reported and settled on a one-year, $8 million pact that will allow Cruz to attempt a reset on his reputation following a 50-game PED suspension.
But that's not what cost Cruz his lottery ticket. Smart brass did.
General managers are no longer chipmunks reacting to every shiny bauble. All 32 GMs looked beyond the home runs and saw a pile of mediocrity. Cruz is 33 and won't be younger next year. He makes a lot of outs. (OBP under .330 each of last three years.) He has batted in a friendly home park outside Dallas. He's a DH in right field clothing. Signing him requires the loss of a first-round draft pick.
Not many clubs are lacking in immobile semi-slugging defensive liabilities, and if they are, they can get 90% of Cruz's value for half the cost and keep their draft picks while they're at it. So Nelson Cruz's market value, which he and his agent pegged at somewhere above $14.1 million, turned out to be $8 million, and only then with an asterisk.
The Orioles could sign Cruz only because three conditions existed simultaneously. First, they had a help wanted sign on the DH slot. Second, Camden Yards, like The Ballpark, inflates offensive stats, so the O's could offer Cruz a chance at rehabilitation under sympathetic conditions.
Maybe most importantly, Baltimore already spent its first round pick on Ubaldo Jimenez, meaning the pricetag on a Cruz singing dropped to a #2 pick. That's a significant difference that allowed them to offer Cruz more than other teams could.
Nelson Cruz is out $6.1 million because teams no longer see a player who batted .266 with 27 homers and 76 RBI in just 109 games. They see a defensive albatross worth two wins-a-year and headed in the wrong direction.
Perhaps Cruz should make his case to a sabermetric-averse baseball writer. He'd have a chance at three years/$40 million with them.
That one fact explains why Nelson Cruz spit the bit by declining the Rangers' qualifying $14.1 million offer to enter the free agent sweepstakes.
Cruz was banking on at least one GM salivating over his big bat (123 OPS+, primarily because he slugs 34 homers per 162 games) and inking him to a fat deal.
He may instead be firing his agent. Cruz waited out the market until pitchers and catchers reported and settled on a one-year, $8 million pact that will allow Cruz to attempt a reset on his reputation following a 50-game PED suspension.
But that's not what cost Cruz his lottery ticket. Smart brass did.
General managers are no longer chipmunks reacting to every shiny bauble. All 32 GMs looked beyond the home runs and saw a pile of mediocrity. Cruz is 33 and won't be younger next year. He makes a lot of outs. (OBP under .330 each of last three years.) He has batted in a friendly home park outside Dallas. He's a DH in right field clothing. Signing him requires the loss of a first-round draft pick.
Not many clubs are lacking in immobile semi-slugging defensive liabilities, and if they are, they can get 90% of Cruz's value for half the cost and keep their draft picks while they're at it. So Nelson Cruz's market value, which he and his agent pegged at somewhere above $14.1 million, turned out to be $8 million, and only then with an asterisk.
The Orioles could sign Cruz only because three conditions existed simultaneously. First, they had a help wanted sign on the DH slot. Second, Camden Yards, like The Ballpark, inflates offensive stats, so the O's could offer Cruz a chance at rehabilitation under sympathetic conditions.
Maybe most importantly, Baltimore already spent its first round pick on Ubaldo Jimenez, meaning the pricetag on a Cruz singing dropped to a #2 pick. That's a significant difference that allowed them to offer Cruz more than other teams could.
Nelson Cruz is out $6.1 million because teams no longer see a player who batted .266 with 27 homers and 76 RBI in just 109 games. They see a defensive albatross worth two wins-a-year and headed in the wrong direction.
Perhaps Cruz should make his case to a sabermetric-averse baseball writer. He'd have a chance at three years/$40 million with them.
16 February 2014
Obsessed With Obsession
About nearly every great man two things can be said: he achieved great things in his life and he barely participated in the raising of his children.
About many great athletes, hagiographic observers have cooed, "he's the first to practice and the last to leave." A variation on this notes how the day after he won or lost the championship he could be found on the playing surface practicing a part of his game repeatedly.
We have an obsession with obsession, particularly at the highest level of sports. "He lives, eats and breathes (his sport)" is considered a compliment of the highest order. Pete Rose bragged that he'd never read a book cover-to-cover, and we admired how he had one of his best seasons the year his marriage dissolved.
What we fail to realize is that our sports heroes (and indeed, many of our business pioneers) tend to be one-dimensional demigods whose entire lives revolve around winning championships on the field but not on the homefront. That's another way of saying the home front revolves around them and their narcissistic endeavors.
Conversely, the way to dismiss a professional athlete is to say he doesn't love his game. He doesn't burn to win. Those tend to be the most interesting athletes, at least as human beings; they're the ones who have other interests besides competing every minute of every day to be the best at one thing.
I'm not the first person to arrive at my workplace in the morning or the last to leave, and I like it that way. I have a second job that feeds another part of my soul. I have an active social life and I volunteer like crazy, every Saturday for one organization. I read books. You might have noticed that I write a blog. If I haven't spent any quality time with my wife in a few days, I try to get directly home after work so that she's more than a roommate, or a planet orbiting my life.
Maybe I have an obsession with balance, with a multifaceted life, with a world of ideas in varied realms. Maybe that point of view is for those who lack ambition, people who will never invent the iPad, hit .300 lifetime or build Facebook. We also won't leave the nation littered with kids who never really knew their dads because they were singularly focused on winning.
When Michael Jordan left basketball, universally heralded as the greatest of all time, he had the opportunity to live the cliche of spending more time with his family in Chicago. But that transition would have come with a price. "The Greatest" would have to trade in his mantle for merely "dad." The world that revolved around him would have to reorient itself around his children and their mother. Freedom would have to give way to awesome responsiblity.
Instead he fled to the front office in Washington, D.C., and predictably his wife divorced him. He may be the best basketball player who ever lived, but it feels like he could have used some balance in his life. Keep that in mind the next time you consider a person who gave everything they had to a single endeavor.
About many great athletes, hagiographic observers have cooed, "he's the first to practice and the last to leave." A variation on this notes how the day after he won or lost the championship he could be found on the playing surface practicing a part of his game repeatedly.
We have an obsession with obsession, particularly at the highest level of sports. "He lives, eats and breathes (his sport)" is considered a compliment of the highest order. Pete Rose bragged that he'd never read a book cover-to-cover, and we admired how he had one of his best seasons the year his marriage dissolved.
What we fail to realize is that our sports heroes (and indeed, many of our business pioneers) tend to be one-dimensional demigods whose entire lives revolve around winning championships on the field but not on the homefront. That's another way of saying the home front revolves around them and their narcissistic endeavors.
Conversely, the way to dismiss a professional athlete is to say he doesn't love his game. He doesn't burn to win. Those tend to be the most interesting athletes, at least as human beings; they're the ones who have other interests besides competing every minute of every day to be the best at one thing.
I'm not the first person to arrive at my workplace in the morning or the last to leave, and I like it that way. I have a second job that feeds another part of my soul. I have an active social life and I volunteer like crazy, every Saturday for one organization. I read books. You might have noticed that I write a blog. If I haven't spent any quality time with my wife in a few days, I try to get directly home after work so that she's more than a roommate, or a planet orbiting my life.
Maybe I have an obsession with balance, with a multifaceted life, with a world of ideas in varied realms. Maybe that point of view is for those who lack ambition, people who will never invent the iPad, hit .300 lifetime or build Facebook. We also won't leave the nation littered with kids who never really knew their dads because they were singularly focused on winning.
When Michael Jordan left basketball, universally heralded as the greatest of all time, he had the opportunity to live the cliche of spending more time with his family in Chicago. But that transition would have come with a price. "The Greatest" would have to trade in his mantle for merely "dad." The world that revolved around him would have to reorient itself around his children and their mother. Freedom would have to give way to awesome responsiblity.
Instead he fled to the front office in Washington, D.C., and predictably his wife divorced him. He may be the best basketball player who ever lived, but it feels like he could have used some balance in his life. Keep that in mind the next time you consider a person who gave everything they had to a single endeavor.
13 February 2014
The Deification of Derek Jeter Commences
Befitting his entire career, the idolatry around Derek Jeter entered its crescendo phase yesterday with the announcement that 2014 would be his final season. Expect the crescendo to remain in effect, nationwide, through October.
Derek Jeter is one of the great players of all time, warranting a Hall of Fame bust. He will get that in 2019, by which time he will also have achieved sainthood, if not by the Catholic Church than in the conclave of public opinion.
The narrative of Jeter the great man, transcendent teammate, clutch performer, etc., etc., etc. has been written, validated and parroted so often that critical thinking is no longer expected or even desired.
Many Jeter worshippers will agree that one play above all others encapsulates his career. They are correct about the play, but not about why. It is the catch in a regular-season game against the Red Sox in 2004 in which he dove into the stands to snare a foul ball and came away with it despite a collision with metal seats that left him bloody faced and glassy eyed.
The collective wisdom about the catch is that it demonstrated his resolve, his team play, his guttiness, his selflessness, his hustle -- take your pick or choose them all. It catapulted him, or rather vindicated the catapulting that had already occurred, into the stratosphere of greats.
It is a microcosm of Jeter's career for a different reason: it is grossly exaggerated in the public mind's eye. In fact, as has been documented ad nauseum in this space before, Jeter made a lovely running grab roughly 10 feet from the stands before his momentum brought him to the railing. By his own admission on 60 Minutes, he hoisted himself into the seats in hopes of landing in someone's lap, having previously that season flipped over the railing and onto the concrete.
Like Jeter's entire career, there was greatness there, but it has been magnified and distorted, and has taken on an undeserved grandiosity that is now simply understood as fact in the collective consciousness.
Isn't it enough that Jeter is one of the five or six best shortstops of all time, that he's the all-time Yankee hit king, that he owns a .312 batting average and .381 OBP, 348 steals at a 79% clip, 13 seasons of 100+ runs scored, 94 offensive wins against replacement and all the other records? Must we lard his accomplishments with fatuous ideas about his fielding ability, his "clutchness," his leadership skills and his character? There is ample evidence that he has been a below-average fielding shortstop, he captained the worst collapse in baseball playoff history, he was lucky to play for the richest and most talent-stocked franchise in the game and he is a gentleman and a scholar who treats others with respect, but is never mistaken for Nelson Mandella.
Hats off to Derek Jeter for a spectacular career, as no doubt will happen, endlessly, during his farewell tour around the leagues this year. It hasn't started and it is already getting old.
Derek Jeter is one of the great players of all time, warranting a Hall of Fame bust. He will get that in 2019, by which time he will also have achieved sainthood, if not by the Catholic Church than in the conclave of public opinion.
The narrative of Jeter the great man, transcendent teammate, clutch performer, etc., etc., etc. has been written, validated and parroted so often that critical thinking is no longer expected or even desired.
Many Jeter worshippers will agree that one play above all others encapsulates his career. They are correct about the play, but not about why. It is the catch in a regular-season game against the Red Sox in 2004 in which he dove into the stands to snare a foul ball and came away with it despite a collision with metal seats that left him bloody faced and glassy eyed.
The collective wisdom about the catch is that it demonstrated his resolve, his team play, his guttiness, his selflessness, his hustle -- take your pick or choose them all. It catapulted him, or rather vindicated the catapulting that had already occurred, into the stratosphere of greats.
It is a microcosm of Jeter's career for a different reason: it is grossly exaggerated in the public mind's eye. In fact, as has been documented ad nauseum in this space before, Jeter made a lovely running grab roughly 10 feet from the stands before his momentum brought him to the railing. By his own admission on 60 Minutes, he hoisted himself into the seats in hopes of landing in someone's lap, having previously that season flipped over the railing and onto the concrete.
Like Jeter's entire career, there was greatness there, but it has been magnified and distorted, and has taken on an undeserved grandiosity that is now simply understood as fact in the collective consciousness.
Isn't it enough that Jeter is one of the five or six best shortstops of all time, that he's the all-time Yankee hit king, that he owns a .312 batting average and .381 OBP, 348 steals at a 79% clip, 13 seasons of 100+ runs scored, 94 offensive wins against replacement and all the other records? Must we lard his accomplishments with fatuous ideas about his fielding ability, his "clutchness," his leadership skills and his character? There is ample evidence that he has been a below-average fielding shortstop, he captained the worst collapse in baseball playoff history, he was lucky to play for the richest and most talent-stocked franchise in the game and he is a gentleman and a scholar who treats others with respect, but is never mistaken for Nelson Mandella.
Hats off to Derek Jeter for a spectacular career, as no doubt will happen, endlessly, during his farewell tour around the leagues this year. It hasn't started and it is already getting old.
12 February 2014
Sam's Club: Tim Tebow Deserves a Membership
It's basketball and hockey season, the Olympics are going on and this is a baseball blog.
It's time for a football post!
It's not really about football, though. The big news this week is that Michael Sam has proposed to be the first openly gay NFL player by coming out before the draft.
The reigning SEC defensive player of the the year had apprised his University of Missouri teammates before the 2013 season and they evidently cared so little that the information never leaked.
That, of course, is the point. It's a testament to our evolution as a society that what comes of Sam's admission will be the same as what's come of gay rights, gay marriage, gay adoption, etc:
Nothing.
Our gay brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors, won legal protections and that cut into your rights not one eyelash. Gay Americans began marrying and your marriage didn't notice. Gay Americans began adopting children who are, shockingly, growing up to be people.
In short order, Sam's ability at his position will far outweigh his position in the bedroom and America will return to its primary religion: football. The Judeo-Christian bible may include some strictures against homosexuality, but the far more influential national religion of the spheroid has none. Players, even the most monkey-brained, will adapt.
Bully for us. But before chiropractors go on call for all the back-patting, it does raise a troubling question:
Why can't we cut Tim Tebow the same slack?
Tebow isn't Johnny Unitas, but he isn't Aaron Hernandez either. He works hard, spreads good cheer, treats everyone with respect, takes responsibility for his actions and demonstrates leadership. Yet he can't get one of the 1600 on-field jobs in the NFL, seemingly because he loves Jesus. Where's the tolerance there?
Here's what analysts report GMs say about him: He's a distraction. He brings the circus with him. Not everyone loves his overt devotion.
Isn't that the hate code that gays and their supporters decry?
Tebow might be the greatest college football player of all time. He must have useful talents even if they're not behind the center. Couldn't he contribute in a wildcat? Or at tight end?
What's Tebow ever done besides treat people with dignity?
Knelt in prayer on the sideline? Heavens!
Inscribed a biblical verse in his eyeblack? Heresy!
Joined a mission trip to Haiti? Oh, the humanity!
I don't share Tim Tebow's religious beliefs. I don't share Martin Luther King's or Gandhi's either.
Let's give Tim Tebow the same respect we give Michael Sam. Just judge him on his playing ability and skip the narrow-minded slurs.
It's time for a football post!
It's not really about football, though. The big news this week is that Michael Sam has proposed to be the first openly gay NFL player by coming out before the draft.
The reigning SEC defensive player of the the year had apprised his University of Missouri teammates before the 2013 season and they evidently cared so little that the information never leaked.
That, of course, is the point. It's a testament to our evolution as a society that what comes of Sam's admission will be the same as what's come of gay rights, gay marriage, gay adoption, etc:
Nothing.
Our gay brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors, won legal protections and that cut into your rights not one eyelash. Gay Americans began marrying and your marriage didn't notice. Gay Americans began adopting children who are, shockingly, growing up to be people.
In short order, Sam's ability at his position will far outweigh his position in the bedroom and America will return to its primary religion: football. The Judeo-Christian bible may include some strictures against homosexuality, but the far more influential national religion of the spheroid has none. Players, even the most monkey-brained, will adapt.
Bully for us. But before chiropractors go on call for all the back-patting, it does raise a troubling question:
Why can't we cut Tim Tebow the same slack?
Tebow isn't Johnny Unitas, but he isn't Aaron Hernandez either. He works hard, spreads good cheer, treats everyone with respect, takes responsibility for his actions and demonstrates leadership. Yet he can't get one of the 1600 on-field jobs in the NFL, seemingly because he loves Jesus. Where's the tolerance there?
Here's what analysts report GMs say about him: He's a distraction. He brings the circus with him. Not everyone loves his overt devotion.
Isn't that the hate code that gays and their supporters decry?
Tebow might be the greatest college football player of all time. He must have useful talents even if they're not behind the center. Couldn't he contribute in a wildcat? Or at tight end?
What's Tebow ever done besides treat people with dignity?
Knelt in prayer on the sideline? Heavens!
Inscribed a biblical verse in his eyeblack? Heresy!
Joined a mission trip to Haiti? Oh, the humanity!
I don't share Tim Tebow's religious beliefs. I don't share Martin Luther King's or Gandhi's either.
Let's give Tim Tebow the same respect we give Michael Sam. Just judge him on his playing ability and skip the narrow-minded slurs.
11 February 2014
Pearls of Wisdom; Nuggets of Poop
Records are made to be broken. Promises are made to be kept. Herewith, the fulfillment of a promise to scavenge the last third of the 2013 blogging year for pearls of wisdom and nuggets of poop.
The review begins with this instructive assertion from May: Cleveland and Pittsburgh would both maintain their mojo and win 85 games, but let's not order any confetti for these perennial sad sacks. In fact, both teams kept their lightning bottled and played into October. So that one goes into the loss column. At the same time, the 85-win suggestion was reasonable; neither really had the talent for their final positions. As evidence, neither shapes up to repeat that performance despite their youth and the general trend towards assuming talented young squads will improve.
Put this caution from July in the win column: don't count on Hall of Famer Derek Jeter ever returning to star form. in fact, the post was pretty prescient about Jeter's immediate future, which amounted to zero. The same caveats are in order for the upcoming season.
The post about the Phillies a week later also puts Braindrizzling on the victory stand again, though it's a pretty hollow victory. Projecting trouble for the franchise in Philadelphia is as shocking as the troubles of a government website. Still, Ruben Amaro would have been well-served to have read the post and followed its recommendations. Alas for lovers of brothers, he didn't.
Complaining about All-Star selections is as easy and fulfilling as kicking newborn puppies, so you won't read much of that here. But the following statement got lost amid the minutae in this compilation of groovy mid-season observations:
Three-time All-Star Evan Longoria's .870 OPS and superb defense have been worth four wins already this year. He's not an All-Star. He wasn't even in the final fan vote. That's gonna look awfully silly in October.
Here's the October version: Longoria hit 34% above average with 32 homers and 42 doubles/triples, added superb defense for 6.3 wins against replacement and finished sixth in the MVP voting. Not an All-Star. Silly.
You might use the same word to describe this August post suggesting that despite the general conviction that the Braves were not designed for the playoffs, they could in fact make some noise in the post-season. Oh, they made noise all right: the thud of a boulder hitting a wall. They lost again in the first round to the Dodgers.
But if silly is the word of the day, consider the silliest idea of all: you're reading this dreck! I predict that you're a sucker.
Right again!
The review begins with this instructive assertion from May: Cleveland and Pittsburgh would both maintain their mojo and win 85 games, but let's not order any confetti for these perennial sad sacks. In fact, both teams kept their lightning bottled and played into October. So that one goes into the loss column. At the same time, the 85-win suggestion was reasonable; neither really had the talent for their final positions. As evidence, neither shapes up to repeat that performance despite their youth and the general trend towards assuming talented young squads will improve.
Put this caution from July in the win column: don't count on Hall of Famer Derek Jeter ever returning to star form. in fact, the post was pretty prescient about Jeter's immediate future, which amounted to zero. The same caveats are in order for the upcoming season.
The post about the Phillies a week later also puts Braindrizzling on the victory stand again, though it's a pretty hollow victory. Projecting trouble for the franchise in Philadelphia is as shocking as the troubles of a government website. Still, Ruben Amaro would have been well-served to have read the post and followed its recommendations. Alas for lovers of brothers, he didn't.
Complaining about All-Star selections is as easy and fulfilling as kicking newborn puppies, so you won't read much of that here. But the following statement got lost amid the minutae in this compilation of groovy mid-season observations:
Three-time All-Star Evan Longoria's .870 OPS and superb defense have been worth four wins already this year. He's not an All-Star. He wasn't even in the final fan vote. That's gonna look awfully silly in October.
Here's the October version: Longoria hit 34% above average with 32 homers and 42 doubles/triples, added superb defense for 6.3 wins against replacement and finished sixth in the MVP voting. Not an All-Star. Silly.
You might use the same word to describe this August post suggesting that despite the general conviction that the Braves were not designed for the playoffs, they could in fact make some noise in the post-season. Oh, they made noise all right: the thud of a boulder hitting a wall. They lost again in the first round to the Dodgers.
But if silly is the word of the day, consider the silliest idea of all: you're reading this dreck! I predict that you're a sucker.
Right again!
08 February 2014
We Haven't Learned A Thing
If there's one lesson we should all have learned from the Super Bowl it is that we don't learn any lessons in sports.
Consider this: the world of football analysts, which bubbles over like soup in an uncovered blender, spent 24 hours-a-day for two full weeks analyzing a single contest. They scrutinized each player and coach down to the mitochondria in his left elbow hair follicles. They tracked the weather with the ferocity of a meteorologist in the path of a hurricane. They investigated the emotional state of the competitors like Karl Jung on amphetamines. They compared and contrasted as profoundly as a comparative literature dissertation. They considered every possible variable in this upcoming game, discussed them interminably, examined months of tape and then boldly predicted absolutely nothing like the ultimate outcome.
Seriously, I am not aware of a single "expert" who suggested before the Super Bowl that Denver didn't belong on the field with Seattle. (Perhaps there was one or two, but they were they outlyingest outliers, and probably reside in the Pacific Northwest.) Although many picked Seattle to win, they were still wrong, because none of them proposed a blowout unworthy of your viewing time.
Football analysts aren't stupid, lazy or naive. They are simply guilty of reckless disregard of an obvious truth -- that anything can happen in one game that makes analysis of past games utterly irrelevant. And the consuming public of this analysis -- i.e., sports fans -- join them in that negligence. We all conspire to ignore a fact proven repeatedly, that tiny advantages, even if piled up high, even if all accruing to one contestant and not the other, even if beyond debate, convey only tiny advantage, which can be completely overwhelmed in the heat of battle.
Think about baseball playoffs. We see the same kinds of analysis built on houses of sand and fog -- one team has home field advantage (a 55% edge in one game if and only if the teams are tied after six); one team's top two starters are superior (over the course of the season, though perhaps not over the next two starts); one team has more experience (which has been demonstrated repeatedly not to matter one iota of a scintilla of a bit); or any other matter of considerations that reasonable people could agree amount to an amoeba on a whale's back.
We go through this annually with clock-like regularity, as if stuck in an endless loop we can't escape. No one ever reminds the ESPN host that he's ignoring history and wasting his breath.
If the games were predictable they would be . . . the early rounds of the NBA playoffs. A big yawnfest. Thankfully, they're full of surprises.
When asked, in the weeks leading up, who would win the Super Bowl, the only correct answer was, "the team that scores more points." Any other answer was, well, pointless.
Consider this: the world of football analysts, which bubbles over like soup in an uncovered blender, spent 24 hours-a-day for two full weeks analyzing a single contest. They scrutinized each player and coach down to the mitochondria in his left elbow hair follicles. They tracked the weather with the ferocity of a meteorologist in the path of a hurricane. They investigated the emotional state of the competitors like Karl Jung on amphetamines. They compared and contrasted as profoundly as a comparative literature dissertation. They considered every possible variable in this upcoming game, discussed them interminably, examined months of tape and then boldly predicted absolutely nothing like the ultimate outcome.
Seriously, I am not aware of a single "expert" who suggested before the Super Bowl that Denver didn't belong on the field with Seattle. (Perhaps there was one or two, but they were they outlyingest outliers, and probably reside in the Pacific Northwest.) Although many picked Seattle to win, they were still wrong, because none of them proposed a blowout unworthy of your viewing time.
Football analysts aren't stupid, lazy or naive. They are simply guilty of reckless disregard of an obvious truth -- that anything can happen in one game that makes analysis of past games utterly irrelevant. And the consuming public of this analysis -- i.e., sports fans -- join them in that negligence. We all conspire to ignore a fact proven repeatedly, that tiny advantages, even if piled up high, even if all accruing to one contestant and not the other, even if beyond debate, convey only tiny advantage, which can be completely overwhelmed in the heat of battle.
Think about baseball playoffs. We see the same kinds of analysis built on houses of sand and fog -- one team has home field advantage (a 55% edge in one game if and only if the teams are tied after six); one team's top two starters are superior (over the course of the season, though perhaps not over the next two starts); one team has more experience (which has been demonstrated repeatedly not to matter one iota of a scintilla of a bit); or any other matter of considerations that reasonable people could agree amount to an amoeba on a whale's back.
We go through this annually with clock-like regularity, as if stuck in an endless loop we can't escape. No one ever reminds the ESPN host that he's ignoring history and wasting his breath.
If the games were predictable they would be . . . the early rounds of the NBA playoffs. A big yawnfest. Thankfully, they're full of surprises.
When asked, in the weeks leading up, who would win the Super Bowl, the only correct answer was, "the team that scores more points." Any other answer was, well, pointless.
03 February 2014
Deciding To Retire: It Helps To Not Be Good Anymore
You're 37, you've had a fine Major League career, one of the 250 best of all-time, according to Baseball-Reference.com. You've brought home to your family, your agent and your somewhat over-bearing Uncle $91 million.
As an above-average hitter playing middle infield, and then third base, you made All-Star games and got down-ballot MVP votes. As recently as three years ago you batted .338, with time at DH, third, first and second, and led your team to within an out of a World Championship.
But that was in a ballpark that gets Valentine's Day cards from batters, on a team pulsing with hitters. As a second baseman and shortstop with limited range, hitting .300 was real valuable, but now that you're a first baseman and DH whose range could be bronzed, you're barely a replacement level player.
Last year, you got shipped off to the geriatric ward in Philadelphia before getting rescued toward season's end by the Dodgers. You made $16 million, but no one is offering you more than a million or two this year to pinch hit, school the youngsters and bid adieu one road trip at a time.
It might have been tempting for Michael Young to discount his services to a contender in hopes of securing a ring and taking a run at 3,000 hits. But the odds of the former are long and the latter are astronomical considering he's 675 base knocks away. Moreover, Young is perched at .300 in the batting line and would almost certainly compromise his status.
So Michael Young has traded himself to his family with a batting title; a Gold Glove, however unearned; two 100+ RBI seasons; four seasons of 100+ runs and four seasons of 20+ homers. He led the league in hits twice, made seven All-Star appearances and conducted himself with class every day for 14 years.
That's not a bad resume. It's not a bad way to go out.
As an above-average hitter playing middle infield, and then third base, you made All-Star games and got down-ballot MVP votes. As recently as three years ago you batted .338, with time at DH, third, first and second, and led your team to within an out of a World Championship.
But that was in a ballpark that gets Valentine's Day cards from batters, on a team pulsing with hitters. As a second baseman and shortstop with limited range, hitting .300 was real valuable, but now that you're a first baseman and DH whose range could be bronzed, you're barely a replacement level player.
Last year, you got shipped off to the geriatric ward in Philadelphia before getting rescued toward season's end by the Dodgers. You made $16 million, but no one is offering you more than a million or two this year to pinch hit, school the youngsters and bid adieu one road trip at a time.
It might have been tempting for Michael Young to discount his services to a contender in hopes of securing a ring and taking a run at 3,000 hits. But the odds of the former are long and the latter are astronomical considering he's 675 base knocks away. Moreover, Young is perched at .300 in the batting line and would almost certainly compromise his status.
So Michael Young has traded himself to his family with a batting title; a Gold Glove, however unearned; two 100+ RBI seasons; four seasons of 100+ runs and four seasons of 20+ homers. He led the league in hits twice, made seven All-Star appearances and conducted himself with class every day for 14 years.
That's not a bad resume. It's not a bad way to go out.
01 February 2014
A Post With Tremendous Impact
When Congress was battling last year over maintaining reduced tax rates for everyone but wealthiest households, it was my opinion that the proposal on the table was a reasonable offset to all the reductions in services and increases in fees and taxes that everyone else was going to have to endure. It seemed to me that if we were going to slash services for households with low income, as surely we must given our Everest of debt, it's only fair that it be paired with a small sacrifice from those who can most afford it and will be least affected.
Democrats ultimately won that small concession, after which I awaited their plan to begin slashing the deficit without stunting growth. It never came. And so, in my mind, we have a situation reminiscent of a car commercial decrying "or" in favor of "and," as in sweet or sour chicken, cops who serve or protect, and staying in a bed or breakfast.
Similar sentiments accompany discussions among the lords of baseball with respect to the home plate collision. Evidently some higher ups, recalling the devastating crash that wrecked Buster Posey's ankle and leg in 2011 -- so injurious was it that he returned in 2012 and won the NL MVP and the World Series -- are seeking ways to outlaw this violent encounter.
I'm all for it. The human wreck takes place at no other base and is borne of two peculiarities of the play at home: runners can overrun the base without penalty and catchers, emboldened by body armor, physically block the base without the ball.
These two issues are as conjoined as Chang and Eng Bunker. Attempting to eliminate one without the other will result in mayhem, the proverbial one hand clapping. If base runners are prohibited from mowing down catchers then catchers must not be allowed to impede the runners' progress. Like Tennille and The Captain, you can't have one without the oth -- oh, nevermind.
The point remains, ban bumper pool at fourth base, but only while enforcing the rule against blocking it without the ball. Impact isn't possible if there's no one there.
Now, if we could just get about reducing our nation's spending...
Democrats ultimately won that small concession, after which I awaited their plan to begin slashing the deficit without stunting growth. It never came. And so, in my mind, we have a situation reminiscent of a car commercial decrying "or" in favor of "and," as in sweet or sour chicken, cops who serve or protect, and staying in a bed or breakfast.
Similar sentiments accompany discussions among the lords of baseball with respect to the home plate collision. Evidently some higher ups, recalling the devastating crash that wrecked Buster Posey's ankle and leg in 2011 -- so injurious was it that he returned in 2012 and won the NL MVP and the World Series -- are seeking ways to outlaw this violent encounter.
I'm all for it. The human wreck takes place at no other base and is borne of two peculiarities of the play at home: runners can overrun the base without penalty and catchers, emboldened by body armor, physically block the base without the ball.
These two issues are as conjoined as Chang and Eng Bunker. Attempting to eliminate one without the other will result in mayhem, the proverbial one hand clapping. If base runners are prohibited from mowing down catchers then catchers must not be allowed to impede the runners' progress. Like Tennille and The Captain, you can't have one without the oth -- oh, nevermind.
The point remains, ban bumper pool at fourth base, but only while enforcing the rule against blocking it without the ball. Impact isn't possible if there's no one there.
Now, if we could just get about reducing our nation's spending...
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