What's Wrong With HGH?

The recent kerfuffle over Peyton Manning reportedly -- but not convincingly so, at least not yet -- using human growth hormone (HGH) to recover from the serious neck injury that sidelined him for all of 2011 is a trenchant reminder that most folks don't understand why athletes in professional sports are prohibited from using steroids and other drugs.

Contrary to popular opinion, the problem with steroids, HGH and their cousins is not that they are "performance enhancing." There's nothing wrong, or new, with athletes consuming substances to improve their performance. Orange juice, lean meat, ibuprofen and caffeine are all "performance enhancing," and yet no one is suggesting that they be banned, or that athletes who consumed these substances be blackballed.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an injured athlete taking HGH to recover faster. Who could blame him? It's not "cheating" others or gaining an unfair advantage to recover faster from an injury.

The problem with steroids, HGH and their ilk is that they can do serious damage to the human body (and mind) -- up to and including death -- with long-term use. Fearful that young athletes would choose the short-term benefits over the long-term ravages, government banned their use, and many governing bodies in sports followed.

The unfair advantage comes into play when athletes decide nonetheless to take potentially harmful substances that others are dutifully avoiding. It also creates a strong incentive in others to use those "performance enhancers" to keep up. 

This is exactly the story attached to Barry Bonds' descent into steroid use: the best baseball player in the world, he resented the adulation that steroid-enhanced Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa received with their prodigious home run counts in 1998. To reclaim his crown, he launched his own steroid adventure.

The new question, of course, is whether a regimen of steroid use carefully monitored by a physician is indeed harmful to long-term health. We appear now to have a large number of professional athletes who have dabbled in the dark arts without any new Lyle Alzado or Ken Caminiti stories. There may come a time -- we might already be there -- when steroid use should be allowed under a doctor's care.

That would raise new issues involving role models and under-age athletes, issues beyond the point of this discussion. The point is that the use of "performance enhancing drugs," in and of themselves, is neither unusual nor unfair.

Top Sports Hypocricies of 2015

Major college and professional sports are presented to us by the leagues, the schools and their broadcast partners as noble competitions that distinguish the emotionally tough from the emotionally indomitable. While that is often an element of the games, what characterizes every single major sports contest is the pursuit of money, and ever more of it.

Money underlies the raging hypocrisies that gird our most popular sports today. Let's look at the big one:

1. The NCAA -- A fraud wrapped in a lie engulfed in a sham. The so-called "student athletes" competing in major college football and basketball are often functionally illiterate young men forced to support their sponsors' lies about high school "graduations" and  class "attendance" at major American research universities-- until the moment they are released to seek recompense for their labors. Everyone involved in the games -- except the NCAA, of course -- refers to their trade in work terms, such as coaches demanding that players "do their jobs." For this, athletes from low-income families not only get nothing of value (a university education is worthless to someone at a fifth-grade reading level) but are prohibited from earning income by working side jobs. Heck, they can't even get a free ride home from a coach or a fan.

2. The NFL and domestic violence -- Beat your girlfriend mercilessly behind closed doors; serve a short suspension and then sign a lucrative contract. Punch your now-wife once on video and earn the endless enmity of humankind, not to mention an effective lifetime ban from the game. And how about the NFL puking all over itself on the issue, initially all-but dismissing the incident, then over-reacting and violating the policy it had literally just written.

3. Hoopla about the NBA (and NHL, among those who care) regular seasons -- which are as meaningful as clown candidate policy pronouncements. Here are the conference playoff seedings of the last seven Stanley Cup Champions -- 4-6-1-8-3-2-4. Media coverage of these games would have you believe that teams are straining to win every contest down the stretch for the highest seed possible, when in fact they are trying to avoid strains so that their players are healthy for the two-month marathon that actually determines the champion.

4. The brainless patriotism attending the Olympics, World Cup, Rider Cup and Davis Cup -- Nothing swells our USA pride like millionaire professionals from the States defeating amateur Angolan hoopsters. Take that, ISIS!

5. Our varied responses to cheating in different sports -- In NASCAR, if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'. That was the credo of the most beloved driver ever. In football, we could hardly care less who's juicing. In basketball there's an overt understanding that the rules are more lenient for big stars. But in baseball, the Wrath of God is unleashed upon those who take substances that make them better players.

6. Gambling laws -- After 30+ years of asking, I have yet to hear a coherent, much less convincing, argument supporting the prohibition. It's particularly indefensible that the laws are so gauzy that gambling is actually quite encouraged by law, except when it's not.

7.The anti-geek crowd -- Employing mostly red herring arguments, they dismiss the advances made to baseball analysis that have been adopted by every Major League organization and rely instead on old stats they're comfortable with but were discredited nearly 40 years ago.

8. The geek crowd -- Make no mistake, there's plenty of culpability on that side of the ledger too.The stat guys are starting to learn the algorithm for humility and it's about time. Their differential equations offer a 5% edge in a game where swings come in 20% packages.

All I Want for Christmas

Ah Christmas, that joyous time of year when we celebrate freezing precipitation and a fat toymaker in a red suit and a caribou with a glowing proboscis and the loss of our grandmother in a speeding sled accident.

And a seasonal egg-based beverage, and hanging twigs and berries, and parties celebrating Christmas but specifically not called Christmas parties, and the minor league football playoffs, and a Wonderful Jimmy Stewart movie, and the singing of festive old chestnuts.

And the unconscious consumer orgy that fuels our great American economy and has now risen to the level of buying our loved ones luxury automobiles with ribbons on them. 

Also, I understand there's a religious holiday somewhere in there that celebrates the birth of someone who evidence suggests was born in July.

I don't ask for much for Christmas. The Onion calendar. some new sweat socks and a Padres-Mariners World Series.

But if the gods can't make that happen, how about some of these baseball-related requests:

1. Some joy in Mudville -- a World Series pitting teams that haven't won anything in a while. Keep the Yankees, Red Sox, Giants and Cardinals out of it. Give the fan bases that have never enjoyed a baseball championship in Tampa, Seattle, Dallas, Houston and Denver a chance for a parade. 

Include long-suffering fans in Chicago's North Side, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, Oakland, L.A., Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Toronto, Atlanta and Queens -- all of whom have waited at least 20 years for a title. I'd even settle for victory in cities that have a recent championship, but nothing else. That would add Anaheim, Chicago's South Side, Philadelphia and Phoenix.

What I'm really saying is, the smaller the financial gap between franchises, the more competitive balance, the better.

2. A laxative -- some common sense rules to move things along. Like limiting pitching changes, throws to first, and stepping out of the box. And where the rules already exist, enforce them. Baseball is entertainment.

3. Hal behind the plate -- a computer calling balls and strikes. The technology now exists to get every ball/strike call correct. Why muck around with the Odyssey of umpires who are fooled a dozen times-a-game by moving pitches and catcher framing? 

4. The Andrea True Connection -- More! More! More baseball on computers. Ditch the non-competes and allow us to watch all the playoff games on MLB.TV.

5. Trout fishing -- More great young talent like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. It's awesome to see players who stack up with the greatest of all time.

6. A curfew -- arrange things so we finish the World Series by mid-October, before the snow flies on the most important games of the season. They have these new things called double-headers.

7. Global warming -- while we're at it, arrange the early schedule so games are played in good weather cities and domes. Early April is too cold for baseball north of the Mason-Dixon line.

8. A bust -- for Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodriguez and every other all-time great who is or might be tainted by steroid use. Put them in the Hall of Fame, warts and all, not for their sake, but for the Hall of Fame's sake. 

9. A license to ill -- Require anyone requesting press credentials to have completed a course and passed a test on baseball's new analysis. Now that we're approaching 37 years since Bill James debunked the traditional accounting -- BA, HR, RBI, RS, W-L -- everyone covering the sport should understand why Alex Gordon (.271-13-48) is as valuable as David Ortiz (.273-37-108).  

10. Peace on Earth. So I'll settle for Padres-Mariners.

The Pete Rose Conundrum Is Really Kind of Simple

I'm not the least bit sympathetic to Pete Rose for his continuing ban from baseball, are you? The guy is an inveterate liar and a bit of a dope. He's frittered away numerous kotowing opportunities to the lords of the game that could have polished his reformation credentials.

Besides that, what do I care if he's allowed to serve as a hitting instructor or a first base coach? That's really a Pete Rose problem.

Here's what I do care about: I care about a baseball Hall of Fame that doesn't include the all-time hits leader. That's a bit of a travesty.

Here are some more bits: the Hall of Fame apparently will close its doors to the all-time home run king and the best pitcher of his generation. We appear to be destined to a Hall absent one of MLB's greatest infielders, who has not yet retired. For years the Hall has turned a blind eye to one of the best players of the early 20th century. 

Instead we have Phil Rizzuto and Lloyd Waner.

Having lived down the road from the Hall for 18 years; having made a tradition of annual Hejiras to Cooperstown every Opening Day, where we would hop the fence at Doubleday Field and throw a ball around (it snowed on us once); I want the museum to mean something. I want enshrinement of the game's best, not its nicest or most moral. 

MLB can screw Pete Rose, but I wish it would quit screwing you and me, and this year, new commissioner Rob Manfred made it clear that he is not interested in that responsibility. He announced -- I read it as a suggestion -- that the Hall of Fame could make its own decisions about Rose independent of his decision to maintain the ban.

So here's your chance, proprietors of the realm: disconnect Hall votes from MLB policy and let the voters decide whether Rose and his clay feet belong next to a string of vicious racists (Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Kennesaw Mountain Landis, to name three), proven cheaters (Gaylord Perry) and serial adulterers (most notably Wade Boggs).

And voters, don't forget that it's not just about Pete Rose (or Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens, or Alex Rodriguez someday.) Electing them to the Hall of Fame isn't just an honor for them. It's about honoring the baseball fans who remember how Rose stole our hearts with his unprecedented hustle, how Clemens mowed down professional hitters, how ARod played the greatest shortstop we'd ever seen and how Bonds dominated the game like no one who ever played.

Are We In A New Era of Baseball?

Remember the 2000s, which began with Barry Bonds decapitating the record books and the Yankees winning their third straight World Series, and ended with Barry Bonds decapitating the record books and the Yankees winning the World Series? 

Ah, those were the days. Chicks dug the long ball and there was plenty to dig. Thirty-four players smashed 30+ home runs in 2006, including renowned sluggers Joe Crede, Bill Hall and Nick Swisher; just 20 hitters tallied 30 this past season. League average OPS for that year was 47 points higher; teams averaged 100 more runs.

Since 2010, the worm has begun to turn. The Giants, Royals, Cardinals, Red Sox, Mets, Tigers and Rangers have played in the World Series since 2010. The Yankees missed the playoffs the last three years.

In 2010, runs, hits, doubles per game all dropped to their lowest levels in years, and all have stayed low. The walk rate dropped below 1968's level in 2011 and hasn't bounced back. The new strikeout record was first set in 2008 at 6.8 per nine innings and has steadily risen to 7.8 in 2015. Baseball's ERA fell below 4.00 in 2011 and has remained below all but one of the last five years. 

It appears we are in a new era of baseball. The Steroid Era, The Longball Era, The Era of Offense -- whatever you want to call it, it's officially over. Many cynics believe that testing for steroids has made the difference, but there seem to be other factors as well. Consider these events since 2012:

1. The transition in the Commissioner's office from Bud Selig to Rob Manfred
2. The new CBA kicking in, with its changes to the amateur draft and to free agency
3. The emergence of the Pirates, Royals, Astros, Mets and Cubs as competitive franchises, and the decline of the Red Sox, Tigers, Phillies, and (to a lesser extent) Yankees
4. The A-Rod and Ryan Braun suspensions
5. The wave of front office changes, which have dimished the importance of the traditional "GM" role - as teams like the Dodgers, Cubs, Blue Jays, etc. bring in big names with titles like Director of Baseball Operations while still keeping a GM
6. The arrival of the next generation of superstars: Trout, Harper, Bryant, Machado, Correa, Sano
7. Increasing use of defensive shifts

I'm not sure the significance -- if any. Eras come and go. Whatever era you grew up during is the best to you, though it seems pretty clear to me that the 50s was an awful time to be a baseball fan, particularly if you didn't live in New York. A New York team won eight of the 10 World Series during that decade (and one of the other two was the Dodgers, who had just moved to L.A.) and made 14 of the 20 appearances. Unless you lived in Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland or Philadelphia, your team failed to appear in the playoffs even once, and no American League team other than the pinstripes won a championship. (The Yankees played in the World Series every year from 1960-'64, for added insult.)

We might look back on this as the Trout-Harper era, or maybe the return to normalcy.

In Defense of the Player Opt-Out

If, after year three of his nine-year, $205 million contract with the New York Yankees, CC Sabathia had cashed in his opt-out clause at the age of 30, having accumulated Top 5 Cy Young finishes in each of the previous six seasons, would the deal have worked out poorly for the Yankees? 

They would have paid him $63 million for 18.3 WAR, well below market rate, and enjoyed the fruits of the top-of-the-rotation workhorse they wanted when they inked the deal. Sabathia, riding a wave of great performance and still young enough to command wagon-loads of legal tender, would have been wise to latch on elsewhere for more than the $142 million owed to him.

And he would have saved New York a big sunk cost. In the four seasons since the imagined opt out, his ERA has ballooned to 4.01, 5.20, 6.07 and 4.95, earning just 3.6 wins over four years and showing the decrepitude that comes with turning 34 while your waistline turns 50. The pinstripes still owe him $50 million for his age-35 and 36 seasons, neither of which figures to be pretty.

Player Options In the News
The question of player opt-outs has come to the fore after several recent signings in which players have won early opt-outs as signing sweeteners. The Giants threw in an opt-out after just two seasons of Johnny Cueto's six-year, $130 million deal. That would seem to put the 29-year-old hurler in the primo position of seeking further riches after impressing while he's still young.

But what's good for one side isn't necessarily bad for the other. Unless the contract is heavily front-loaded, the team can prosper when the player finds another suitor. Should Cueto continue his NL mastery in 2016 and 2017, the Giants would have enjoyed those two seasons at market prices and let some greater fool pay for Cueto's age 37 season.

Don't Clubs Assume All the Risk With Player Options?
It's been pointed out that players accept the guaranteed money only when poor performance (or injuries) inhibit their ability to command more on the open market, leaving the original signing team holding the bloated contract. But that's the contract the team would have signed anyway, opt-out or not. Most of these deals figure to diminish in value each marginal year, meaning an opt-out might be a gift from heaven. (I'd like the Cueto opt-out significantly better for the Giants if it came a year later. He figures to still be plenty effective at 31.)

There's an opportunity cost when the player leaves -- i.e., the team has to replace the ace with someone else, and if he's similar quality to the guy leaving, he'll cost a bundle too. But players opting out of free agent contracts are almost by definition entering their dotage (Cueto will be unusually young when his option kicks in), while the replacement, even another free agent recruit, can be several key years younger.

The Contrary Case of Zack Greinke
The Dodgers can't be thrilled that Zack Greinke exercised his option to bolt after three awesome seasons of 51-15, 2.48 for the stacks of Benjamins offered by the division rival Diamondbacks. Greinke increased his annual haul by millions and L.A. is back down to one mound ace. But we'll see how it works out for Arizona at $34 million/year as Greinke ages. Past results do not guarantee future performance, especially in the fickle sport of 162 game seasons.

If player options mean that teams are in effect signing free agents to just a few good years and then watching them depart, well, that might not break many GM hearts. It's not the optimal scenario certainly, because the disaster signings will hang around to fester. But if it gets your team the big star in the first place, it might be a small price to pay, smaller even than paying mega-millions for former superstars in their sub-replacement age 37 seasons.

The Royals Have Sparked A Trend, But Not the One You Think

In mid-October, the 86-win Houston Astros held a four-run lead with six outs until the victory that would catapult them into the AL League Champion Series by a three games-to-one margin and send home the over-achieving Kansas City Royals. 

But KC roared back with five runs in the eighth to knot their series before winning the deciding fifth game, and then sweeping Toronto en route to the whole shebang. That small pivot is now beginning to change the whole face of baseball.

Your Nose Runs and Your Feet Smell? You're Build Upside Down
As we've recounted here before, the Royals are built upside down. Their offensive formula is predicated on low-strikeout batters who put the ball in play, pressure the opposition with speed, and then hold the lead with spectacular outfield defense. They win with lockdown relievers Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland (since released following surgery that will sideline him all 2016) in the final three frames after hoping to cobble together six innings from their mediocre stable of starters. 

Had Houston held that lead, no one would be thinking twice about Kansas City's odd formula. But to the victor belong the spoils, and also the trend-setting. Now everyone wants to blot out innings seven through nine.

The Hot Stove Scramble for Closers
Consider that the Dodgers just made -- and may have nixed -- a deal for flamethrower Aroldis Chapman, to pair with closer Kenley Jansen. They've already lost Zack Grienke at the top of their rotation and lost out on David Price. So they're evidently attempting to build from the back forward, though that may now be on hold because of accusations that Chapman clamps down on more than just opposing hitters.

Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, leaders of the Million Strikeout March, have made Yankee Stadium safe for late-game leads. The Red Sox swapped for all-world closer Craig Kimbrel to slot in above Koji Uehara, who has produced a 1.86 ERA, 72 saves and nine times as many strikeouts as walks the last three years. Dave Dombrowski couldn't buy a closer when he was running the Tigers and now he's got two of them to shut down the eighth and ninth innings for the Red Sox.

Out of nowhere, the Astros made the playoffs in 2015 with solid reliever Luke Gregerson and his 2.79 lifetime ERA shutting the door. Last week they swapped their top pick in the 2013 draft and a pile of young players for Phillies closer Ken Giles.

It's All About October (and now November)
And so on. Last year, the thought was that emulating the Royals required the immense good fortune of having three lights-out relievers. Now teams are actively in search of them, and promising them all predetermined roles.

What became clear to many GMs this year wasn't the success of the combo during the season. Teams are realizing that winning in the playoffs requires more than just bullpen arms; it requires bullpen quality. Herrera, Davis and Ryan Madson, their replacement seventh inning hurler, combined for 12 innings of scoreless World Series work with 19 strikeouts as KC came from behind late in three of their four wins. 

Now every team with serious postseason expectations is scrambling to cobble together their own endgame scenario. Good luck with that!

The Cubs Are the Best Team in Baseball. So What?

Only one day later, there seems to be unanimity that the Cubs are the best team in baseball, because:

• They won 97 games last year.
• They swapped Dexter Fowler for Jason Heyward, a net gain.
• They swapped Starlin Castro for Ben Zobist, a big net gain.
• They added John Lackey, who is now their third starter.
• The Cardinals are now seriously weaker.
• They'll have Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler for a full year.
• Nearly the entire roster is moving closer to its prime.
• They have the youngest everyday lineup in baseball.
• They still have a stacked Minor League system.

It's all true, but last year's best team in baseball lost 79 times and failed to sniff the playoffs.

Plus, there's still plenty to worry about in Chicago:

• John Lackey is 37.
• Jake Arrieta's Superman costume was a half-year rental.
• Someone or three is/are not going to live up to their potential.
• Injuries.
• Ineffectiveness. 
• The alignment of the stars.
• The playoffs are a lottery.

In other words, because baseball.

Let's play the season and see what happens. Can we start now?

Is Jason Heyward Realy Worth a Spadillion Bucks?

Named the nation's #1 travel destination the past three years, my hometown of Charleston SC is what you would call a destination. People accept jobs paying a lot less money to live here in the 29401.

The 60613 is becoming a destination too. That's the zip code for the iconic structure at 1060 W Addison St. on Chicago's Northside. Both Ben Zobrist and now Jason Heyward have agreed to bring their lunch pails to the shrine on that site for the next several years, despite more lucrative offers to ply their trade elsewhere.

The newest Wrigley Field denizens join John Lackey as 2016 additions to a squad that roared to 97 wins and a spot in the League Championship Series in 2015. Both said at their signings that they wanted to be part of the crew that brought a World Series title to Cub fans after 108 years.

Heyward: Just .268, 16 HR 59 RBI
The predictable blowback on Heyward's haul began the minute word of his eight-year, $184 million deal hit Twitter. Heyward is the prototype of the baseball player undervalued even in 2015 by casual fans and those not yet sophisticated in the ways of baseball analysis, such as many of the media's self-described baseball analysts. But here's why Theo Epstein is a millionaire and a future Hall of Fame front office guy while your average baseball writer is still struggling to understand OPS.

In his six-year career, Jason Heyward has averaged a mere .268, 16 HR and 59 RBI. If that's how you see the world, Heyward is a fringe starter in the outfield. And if that's how you see the world, give my regards to the woolly mammoth.

We've learned over the last 38 years that those three numbers are weak diagnostic instruments. Heyward's walking proclivities and double & triple power show up in his laudable .353/.431 OBP/SLG numbers. His 86 steals in just 113 attempts, combined with superb baserunning prowess, add to his value. Defense that dazzles the eye as well as the stat sheet adds more fuel to the fire, so that by the time you're done, you have a five-win player who's just entering his age-26 prime.

In other words, Heyward is all the things that traditional measures, like cubits and pieces of silver, don't measure. He gets on base without the gaudy batting average. He slugs doubles and triples, not homers. He's circumspect about his base-stealing, but highly efficient. He fields all three outfield positions and scores on doubles -- things that don't show up in the boxscore.

For the Cubs, there's even more value. Heyward can staff the central pasture and offset some of the defensive pain inflicted by two all-bat corner catastrophes -- Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler.  And his addition in Chicago is subtraction from St. Louis, the Cubs' chief rival and tormentor.

Murderers Row, 2016
As for easily-dismissed broad skills, Ben Zobrist is much the same, and with full infield defensive flexibility. He and Heyward join Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Schwarber, Soler, Miguel Montero and Addison Russell as the Cubs' starting lineup if the season began today. (Sadly, it doesn't.) The guy squatting behind the dish flashes a lifetime .343 OBP while averaging 15 home runs-a-year -- and bats seventh in this lineup. Sheesh.

With Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester and John Lackey flummoxing opposition bats, Hector Rondon turning out the lights and Joe Maddon pulling the levers, it's no wonder free agents are turning down marginal bags of money to hop on the Wrigley Express. They will be young and loaded in 2016 -- and Theo might not even be done.

The Price Was Right For This Fine Starter

Denis Leary and his New England compadres are happy this week. New Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski landed seven years of David "High" Price for $217 million of John Henry's monies.* They have reason to cheer: Boston lagged the AL in pitching last year, accounting for its cellar-dwelling in the East. Adding Price to lockdown closer Craig Kimbrel, the Beaneaters appear much improved for next season.

*There's an opt-out clause for the hurler after three years but he's less likely to exercise it than previous players with mid-contract options because his deal is backloaded.

This is a good signing for the best mound option on the market, with all due respect to Zack Greinke. Price's track record is not just superb, it's consistent and it's mostly been accomplished in the Red Sox's division.

But if you want to dance the jig for a great pitcher signing, go to Detroit. Jordan Zimmermann can now buy all the vowels he needs with a shiny new five-year, $110 million contract.

Consider that: The Red Sox get David Price for two more years -- presumably his worst two -- at an additional cost of $107 million.

Let's consider the tale of the tape over the last five years:
Pitcher              Age ERA  ERA+  INN  WAR
Zimmermann   29   3.14  123   971    19.5
Price                  29   3.02  127   1090  23.0

David Price is a better pitcher than Jordan Zimmermann. He's bigger, stronger and more durable. He's left-handed. He's spent his entire career in the tougher-hitting league. And he's lauded for his clubhouse demeanor.

A win against replacement is worth roughly $8 million these days, give or take my net assets. If the past five years are an indication of their future performance, Price is worth about $28 million more over five years than Zimmermann. But the Red Sox will pay him $107 million more for those five and his age 36 and 37 seasons. Let's call him an average starter those two years and say a win is worth $10 million in 2021. That's still only about half the difference.

It's not surprising that this deal tilts towards the team (but hardly away from the player. He is after all, guaranteed a million dollars 110  times over.)  Early free agent signings tend to set the stage for more lucrative contracts after them. Even accounting for that, the Tigers got themselves a great get.

Everything went sideways at Comerica last season to land the team in the Central basement, and they still have some home improvements before they can pronounce themselves cured for 2016. Signing Zimmermann gives them a frontline starter they badly needed and plenty of leftover liquidity to purchase a bullpen, a catcher and another starter.

We Interrrupt This Broadcast For Mike Trout, 2015 Edition

What do Steve Garvey, Paul Blair, Tim Wakefield, Frank Howard, Bill Mazeroski, Rick Wise, Pie Traynor, Frank White, Brady Anderson and Tom Gordon have in common?

It's the same characteristic shared by Joe Adcock, Harvey Haddix, Willie McGee, Ron Gant, Bobby Thompson, Rick Monday, Pat Hentgen and Rico Carty.

They were all very accomplished Major League Baseball players. They all played 14 or more seasons at the highest level.

And they all earned fewer wins against replacement than Mike Trout -- who is only 23.

Trout has now led the league in WAR each of his first four seasons. He's won a Rookie of the Year, an MVP and three second place MVP finishes. He should have been first each time.

Trout this year slugged 41 home runs and led the AL in slugging percentage, OPS and True Average. He plays a key up-the-middle position. You've seen the highlight reel.

Trout's lifetime TAv is .352. That means, if you see the world through batting average lenses, put all of Mike Trout's attributes together and he's a .352 kind of guy. Willie Mays, over his career, was a .339 kind of guy.

Mike Trout is the same flavor as Willie Mays. Plus sprinkles.

So don't feel too badly for Shawn Green, Derek Lowe, Ken Griffey Sr., B.J. Surhoff, Rick Sutcliffe, Barry Zito, Ted Kluszewski, Richie Hebner, Smokey Burgess and Garry Maddox.

And quit your sniggling Lou Brock, Vida Blue, Gil Hodges, Rusty Staub, Carlos Delgado, Nomar Garciaparra, Jack Morris, Dizzy Dean and Rocky Colavito. You're next!

Craig Kimbrel Stunk In 2015 . . . Relative to Craig Kimbrel

You've likely heard the news that closer Craig Kimbrel is house-hunting again -- in his third city this calendar year.

The Padres acquired Kimbrel from the Braves in one of those modern-day swaps in which one team gets by far the best player and by far the worst contract in exchange for some lesser players and prospects. One team gets future value and salary relief -- i.e. money -- and the other makes a blockbuster move for right now.

But as you now know, but San Diego GM AJ Preller did not at the time, his team face-planted and now needs to regroup. So he off-loaded Kimbrel to Boston for four farmhands.

It's Kimbrel's first foray in the American League, so the results will be interesting. But we already know how he would fare away from The South. The Alabama native suffered the worst season of his career -- fewest games, fewest innings, fewest strikeouts, lowest K rate, most runs allowed, highest ERA by nearly double, most home runs allowed and only season without Cy Young votes.

That's some disaster, huh? Well, not quite. Kimbrel's 39 saves for that 74-win jalopy aren't too shabby, nor are his 2.58 ERA, his 13.2 K per nine innings or his K/BB ratio of four. He still fanned more than a third of the batters he faced.

In addition, he front-loaded most of his struggles. In the second half, Craig Kimbrel was so unhittable it was like he was ... Craig Kimbrel. The league batted .120 against him, managed four extra base hits and saddled him with a 1.73 ERA.

It's a testament to how transcendent Kimbrel had been that he could fall so far to that. If he returns to form at Fenway he'll be the toast of New England.

A. J. Pierzynski's Unprecedented Season

And so, as noted here, A. J. Pierzynski made history in 2015.

The 38-year-old Pierzynski outplayed the Braves' backstop of the future and produced an above-average hitting line despite squatting in 112 games.

The 18-year veteran of seven Major League clubs produced .300/.338/.422 slash stats, a .281 True Average and two-and-a-half wins above replacement for the Braves, 14% better than the average hitter, whatever his position. 

Two wins cost, on average, about $16 million in today's game. Pierzynski provided Atlanta with that, plus another half win, plus that highly-coveted veteran presence, at a cost of just $2 million. (Fat lot of good it did the team.)

But beyond being a bargain, Pierzynski was arguably -- and it's a pretty convincing argument -- the greatest hitting 38-year-old catcher of all time.

Here are the list of backstops, either now or soon to have their likenesses carved in bronze and displayed in a museum on the banks of Lake Otsego, who could not produce even average batting lines in their age 38 season:

• Johnny Bench
• Yogi Berra
• Carlton Fisk
• Ivan Rodriguez
• Mike Piazza
• Roy Campanella
• Bill Dickey
• Mickey Cochrane
• Gary Carter

The three catchers in all of baseball history who could still lay the lumber at that advanced age were HOFers Gabby Hartnett and Ernie Lombardi, and near-great Jorge Posada. But none of them caught even 85 games, compared to Pierzynski's 112. (He also DH'd once.)

Atlanta has Pierzynski signed for next season at $3 million. He could contract Diptheria before the season commences, return after the All-Star break for one game in which he succumbs to the Golden Sombrero, tear his sternocleidomastoid the next day, throw up into the stands on Fan Appreciation Day and spend the last game on the bench Tweeting a photo of Fredi Gonzalez performing fellatio on Freddie Freeman in the clubhouse -- and still have earned far more than his salary over the course of his deal.

And he probably won't. So hats off to A.J. Pierzynski.

Saved From the Perils of G-G-G-Gambling

News item: The New York State attorney general ordered the two biggest daily fantasy sports companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, to stop accepting bets from New York residents, saying their games constituted illegal gambling under state law.

Oh thank you Mr. Schneiderman, you five-card stud, and your counterparts in neighboring states, for sheltering us from the scourge of gambling! Games of chance are dangerous for the public because they might spend more money than they can afford. Gambling is the devil's work. It's an addictive drug.

(No doubt, many of you read that news item while downing a cup of coffee, without which you're inert in the morning.)

Now, because of the heroic efforts of law enforcers everywhere, Americans from coast to coast are free from the ravages of games of chance.

• Except for state-controlled lotteries.
• Except for the entire state of Nevada.
• Except for casinos on Indian lands.
• Except for casinos aboard riverboats.
• Except for casinos aboard cruise ships.
• Except for Internet gambling sites.
• Except for NCAA office pools.
• Except for Super Bowl bar games.
• Except for church bingo games.
• Except for charity raffles.
• Except for Wall Street day trading.
• Except for season-long fantasy games.
• Except for the billions bet on sporting events every day.
• Except for horse racing venues.
• Except for Off Track Betting. 
• Except...well, let's not let details get in the way.

Good thing gambling is illegal in this country. Its comforting to know that government is keeping us all safe.

About That Whole "Cubs Fans Can Dream On" Thing...

You may recall this post back in April. I made a bit of a to-do about the folly of predicting a Cubs playoff appearance. At the risk of quoting that brilliant philosopher, my own personal self, here's what I said at the time:

"...not since 2008, coming off a roaring 97-win season, has hope taken residence so distant from reality."

Right. Well, about that.

See, here's the thing about predictions in baseball: you can be flat wrong about everything and still call the winner. Or you can nail the logic but get foiled by the vagaries of the game. If you placed those two ideas on opposite ends of the street, I'd be standing on the corner of Well-reasoned and Wrong.

The point of that article was that the Cubs were coming off an 89-loss season even while many of their young players; think Jake Arrieta, Anthony Rizzo, Kyle Hendrick and Starlin Castro; had already blossomed. Despite the addition of Jon Lester and Dexter Fowler; not to mention manager Joe Maddon; and the imminent arrival of Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler and that group; it seemed wise to counsel patience. Rookies not named Vida, Fernando, or The Bird don't generally rocket to success immediately. Some veteran acquisitions don't pan out. Sophomores often stumble following promising freshman seasons. And empty rosters don't unempty themselves just because a couple of newbies join the ranks.

So what happened? All the touted met their tout line, plus 235 pounds of Kyle Schwarber arrived mashing. Jake Arrieta got in touch with his inner Superman. None of the top four starters missed a start. Lester and Fowler played as advertised. The squad served as windshield to the injury bug. New manager Joe Maddon thrilled everyone and the team emerged victorious 97 times plus change in the playoffs.

The point is, that post was right. It was unreasonable to expect the Cubs to blossom all at once, maintain the gains of the previous season and enjoy the fruits of veteran labor without some setbacks. That can happen, it does, and it did. But that's not the way to bet.

The stories were similar in Flushing, Houston and Minnesota, which is why I wasn't too sanguine on any of those teams' chances. The Nationals and Angels are more talented than all of those teams, but sometimes, it's more important how much lightning is in the bottle than how much talent. And nowhere was that more obvious than with the Cubs.

The New Trend That Won't Be

Far be it for me to pass judgment on the latest fashion. I was recently invited to an event in which we were encouraged to wear 90s styles, so I wore my usual attire. I couldn't actually tell you what was fashionable in the 90s, except that I wasn't wearing it then.

I stopped paying attention to pop music way before Justin Bieber was born (though possibly because of that), and see ads for TV shows I've never heard of on networks I've never heard of starring actors I've never heard of. I keep up with the Cashins, not the Kardashians.

And I'm still not clear what birds are angry or why.

So maybe I'm not the great trend spotter, but here's one trend I can publicly dismiss.

The False Narrative
During the World Series, one of the false narratives took shape around the construction of the World Champion Kansas City Royals, a low-payroll juggernaut with the best AL record making a second straight Series appearance.

Unlike the Moneyball A's, built around on base percentage and power, the Royals are a high batting average team without power. They led the league in fewest strikeouts and fewest walks, hit the second fewest home runs and paid no nevermind to "working the count." They put a premium on speed, athleticism and defense. On the mound, they trotted out a series of third and fourth starters and let the bullpen dominate.

And this, it's been suggested, is the next wave of roster-building.

Sigh.

Let's jettison the opening shibboleths before we wade into the facts.

Moneyball is Obsolete
First, there is nothing Sabermetric about OBP and power. What was special about the 2000 A's is that they realized that OBP and power were under-priced in the baseball labor market and therefore they could afford to sign those sorts of players. Walks and homers were cheap; singles and speed were expensive. That, of course, is no longer true.

In addition, the Royals are in a unique situation. Their home park is the size of a National Park. The grassy outfield has a zip code. Speed and defense are especially advantageous in that park; slugging is exceedingly difficult. Walks -- a key component of OBP -- are now appropriately valued, so for a small market team like Kansas City, the more cost-effective way to get on base is by making contact on a field with such wide gaps. In other words, don't try this at home.

Uh-oh: Here Come Facts
Now the facts: the Royals owe their success much less to their approach than to their talent. Lorenzo Cain became an MVP contender this year. Mike Moustakas learned to hit the other way and foiled the shift that foiled him last year. Eric Hosmer fulfilled his potential. Alex Gordon was already a star and Sal Perez rakes relative to his position. So if you want a team construction concept to emulate, here it is -- get really good players.

Lost amid the World Series hype is KC's Achilles heal, one that, largely by luck, avoided exploitation. This was a team reliant on their starting nine like no other, but because the injury gods smiled upon them, their lack of depth was not tested. (I made that very point in May.) Just three non-regulars came to bat 100+ times; the Mets by contrast had nine backups come to the plate that often -- for one less position. There again, building a team virtually free of injury is unquestionably a strategy worth copying.

It might be that GM Dayton Moore has systematically drafted, developed and signed players who make contact and flash leather. It's said (now in retrospect, though I never heard it at the time) that he traded Wil Myers for James Shields in that odd 2013 swap with Tampa Bay because Myers had swing and miss tendencies. But much of this has to be happenstance. The players who prospered in the Minors -- and in Kaufman Stadium -- were these kinds of players, so these are the types who comprise the roster. Teasing out cause and effect is tricky business, especially from where you and I sit.

There may be other franchises that take a swing at the Royals' model, especially those in big parks like San Diego and -- snicker -- Citi Field, where the front office is cost-controlled. It makes no sense in Fenway, Wrigley or Coors, or generally most anywhere else. Which means, you're unlikely to get invited to a 2035 party and encouraged to dress as a contact hitter from 2015.

The World Series That Wasn't

Think back to the World Series of 2005 when the White Sox swept the Astros in four games. The cumulative game tally failed to capture the intra-contest drama of that Fall Classic.

Chicago won Game One 5-3 with a score in the 8th; Game Two 7-6 by overcoming a 4-2 deficit with four in the 7th, then watching Houston knot it with two in the top of the ninth before walking off on an unlikely one-out Scott Podsednick homer off Brad Lidge. Game Three took 14 innings to settle 7-5 and Game Four went to the eighth scoreless until a two-out single plated the game's only run.

The Series might not have been very competitive but each individual game was a barn burner.

Ditto for the 2015 Series. Many have noted that if baseball were an eight-inning affair the Mets would have won in five. The Royals saved their hitting for the final at bats, like a virgin awaiting marriage, despite a strong NY bullpen anchored by one of the league's best closers.

Of course, it wasn't all that surprising the KC owned the games' ends. Their pitching staff is built backwards, after all, which means they are more likely to relinquish runs in the initial six frames than in the final three (or beyond). Like most teams, the Mets are the opposite: their four stud starters were thought to be their golden ticket.

All of which gave rise to several false narratives during the World Series, narratives being the stock in trade of baseball broadcasters whose ability to transform a sporting competition into human drama with a moral component is critical to the enjoyment of the casual fan.

But we were put on this patch of outfield grass to bust myths, so let's get to it:

Myth 1: Terry Collins lost this World Series with his overuse, and then underuse, of Jeurys Familia
Reality: Without defending his decisions to wring two innings from his closer in a blowout and then keep him on the bench in the ninth inning of an apparent win, it's worth noting that the Game 5 choice of Harvey to complete the game is not only totally defensible -- he was dominating KC batters -- but also only marginally different than bringing in Familia. Without knowing what was going to happen, even a purely rational calculation would have pegged the odds of the Mets winning the game as only slightly worse with Harvey on the mound, if at all. The Mets lost that game because they hit safely four times in 12 innings.

Myth 2: The Royals won because they are built a new way -- to make contact and "keep the line moving."
Reality: The Royals are built to get hits and steal bases, and not to strike out, walk and hit home runs, mostly because that's the best strategy (the walks aside) for their bulbous home outfield. But their middle-of-the-pack run scoring ability among AL teams hardly screams "revolution." And remember how they rarely swung and missed in the first two games against Harvey and deGrom? In Game Five, Harvey fanned 11 in eight innings.

Myth 3: Kansas City won the World Series because they -- take your pick: Never Say Die, Hit Better In The Clutch, Have some special bond among the players, blabbity blab blab.
Reality: When a team stages one 11th-hour rally after another -- they led all of 14 innings in a World Series in which they won four times -- it's tempting to assign meaning to it. Very possibly there is some meaning; perhaps the Royals are supremely confident even when down, particularly knowing that their bullpen is superior to the opposition's. But the narrative you heard was all ex-post facto explanation for what was more likely somewhat random and inexplicable. I'll believe Fox's line of logic when it's predictive.

Myth 4: Kansas City's superior advance scouting won the series. They knew to run on Met pitching and Lucas Duda's arm, and to test NY's defensively challenged defensive middle.
Reality: Wow, how exactly did they crack that code? Did they ask a random Met fan on the street? Or a hot dog vendor at Citi Field? Those discerning horsehide experts must have attended two Met games in order to draft that insight.

It was a great postseason packed with teams whose fans have long-suffered. It followed an inspiring season that belied prediction. It was full of team surprises, wild individual accomplishments, rousing young talent and the unique rhythm of a sport played outdoors in Spring, Summer and Fall. It was wholly satisfying even if you're a fan of the fallen.

Let's do it again next year.

Baseball Royalty: It Wasn't Really A Drought

The narrative this postseason -- one that satisfied my deep sense of sports fan justice -- was that the teams competing for the championship were, save for St. Louis and the Yankees, all seeking to end long periods wandering aimlessly in the desert. The Cubs are the cliche, but even the finalists from KC and NY were 30 and 29 years without ultimate victory.

It's so romantic that the story engulfs us. Little guy overachieves. Starving fan base finally quenched. Good guys victorious over the evil empires. It feels so good, World Series ratings spiked -- until games went past midnight Eastern.

But a little arithmetic demonstrates that it's all a mirage.

There are 15 teams in each league. On average, each team should win the pennant twice every 30 years.

There are two leagues. So on average, each team wins the World Series every other time they make the finals, or once every 30 years.

(The number of teams in each league has fluctuated a little over that time, with Milwaukee's move to the NL giving the Senior Circuit 16 of the 30 teams until Houston fled to the AL. That has slightly altered the odds.)

In the last 30 years, the Royals won two pennants and one championship. Perfectly average.

The Mets played in their third World Series -- a little above average -- but haven't won the title -- a little below.

If we look at the other teams in the playoffs, we get much the same thing. Toronto hasn't won a pennant in 22 years, but they hoisted two flags in two seasons before that. The Rangers and Astros are overdue for titles (none between them in nearly 100 combined years of play), but Texas has two pennants in the last five years and the Astros have one in the last 10.

What really marks these teams was how poorly most of them had competed during their drought periods. With four teams in each league earning a playoff spot each of the last 20 seasons (that number is now up to five, thanks to the play-in) a fan base could expect, on average, to see their home nine make the tournament eight times every 30 years. The Blue Jays and Royals hadn't earned a postseason berth since their last World Series; the Pirates hadn't had a winning season for two decades, and the others on this year's playoff roster have all likewise underachieved.

They've been victimized by the Cardinals and Bronx Bombers who have, combined, participated in the postseason 33 times in those 30 years. Hate the Red Sox (13 playoff runs) and Braves (17) too, though at least they had the grace to finish last in their division and third worst in the Majors, respectively, this year.

So, yay for the World Champion Royals, and for the NL champion Mets, and good luck to Houston, Texas, Toronto, Pittsburgh, the Dodgers and, godalmighty, the Cubs. Let's just temper our condolences for many of their fans.

Sandy, Don't Re-Sign Daniel Murphy!

Back in 2010, the Rockies' Ubaldo Jimenez, up until then a .500 pitcher with a four ERA, began unraveling the Colorado mound curse. The Dominican righty entered the All-Star break an untouchable 15-1, 2.20.

I remember listening around that time to a baseball reporter -- either Buster Olney or Tim Kurkjian, but in either case a respected and knowledgeable scribe -- discuss at length the changes Jimenez had made in his approach and execution, and the challenge of hitting his mid-90s heat and quality secondary pitches. The reporter extolled the mechanical changes Jimenez had made that had catapulted him to present and future glory.

Had he entered free agency right there, teams would have been waving Woodrow Wilsons at him.

Very nice.

And then the rest of Jimenez's career happened. He went 4-7, 3.80 in the second half, and has authored a 50-58, 4.43 resume since, allowing nearly a runner-and-a-half per inning.

Which brings us to Daniel Murphy, a perfectly good second baseman known for intelligent play and a nice batting average, but not much power or defense. Since his return from injury in 2011, he has produced 13.3 offensive wins against replacement in five years. That's a solid starter. (Baseball Reference says he's given back three wins with the glove during that time, but we're dubious about defensive metrics.)

In the wake of Murphy's sudden liftoff in the playoffs -- a record seven homers in six straight games against the best pitchers the NL has to offer (excluding his own staff) -- the narrative has turned. Suddenly we're scouring Mets lore for the source of this outbreak, and the slight increase in power. (He hit 14 homers this year, one more than in 2013, and recorded a .449 SLG, one point higher than in 2011. The small uptick in muscle accompanied a small downtick in batting safely, resulting in a fairly typical Murphy season.)

Several sources have documented that hitting guru Kevin Long rejiggered Murphy's setup, keeping his hands lower, bending his legs deeper and starting his leg lift earlier. Perhaps as a result, he popped eight home runs in August and September, and then seven more in nine games before entering the World Series. The implication, of course, is that the slugging is now a Murphy trait.

And maybe it is, but that's not the way to bet. Daniel Murphy enters free agency as a 31-year-old future former-keystoner. It's far more likely that we've seen his best than the beginning of something new. One front office wag speculated to Sports Illustrated that his activities in the NLCS had raised his price to five years/$75 million.

To the Mets, that should sound like Bernie Madoff with a stock tip.

Sandy Alderson now has five sterling starters and a golden closer, all 27 or under, around whom to build for future World Series runs. While a $10 million, 280-pound boulder comes off the payroll, the lineup is still wanting, particularly if the straw that stirred this season's drink, Yoenis Cespedes, seeks Bartolo Colon's weight in gold. One way or another, the Mets need to pony up for a reliable middle-of-the-lineup hitter or they could suffocate on 2-1 losses again the way they did through July.

For a franchise with limited resources, a host of arbitration raises to contend with and that one big need, Daniel Murphy on a long, fat contract is not the prescription, particularly if Wilmer Flores can cover the keystone.

Absent a natural replacement, should the Mets re-sign Muphy? Sure, for three years at a reasonable price, while they look for reinforcements as he ages. But breaking the bank for Daniel Murphy? Please. His leg kick isn't that much earlier.

You Couldn't Make This Stuff Up

Baseball: you've gotta love it:

• The first pitch of the first game thrown to the home team turns into a four-base error generously credited as a the first inside-the-park home run in roughly a century of World Series. 
• The centerfield defensive replacement and the backup shortstop combine to produce the go-ahead run.
• A Gold Glove first baseman makes a miscue that allows a run to score and appears to cost his team the game. 
• The surprise fourth starter pitches three innings of relief and is the star of the game.
• A pitcher who allowed 24 free passes in 194 innings walks three batters in two innings to lose the game.
• A red hot batter with a record seven home runs in his last six contests off the best hurlers in baseball comes up empty in two games against Edinson Volquez, Chris Young, Luke Hochevar and Johnny Cueto.
• A Cy Young contender allows four runs and three walks in five innings.
• A struggling starter hurls a complete game two-hitter.
• The controversial leadoff hitter with a sub-.300 OBP breaks the record for postseason hits with at least two more games to play.
• The TV crew loses power to their truck so the lords of baseball delay the game while fans in attendance wonder what's going on.
• The vaunted starting staff that was the linchpin of one team's World Series run gives up seven runs in 11 innings. Known for their blazing heat and confounding secondary pitches, they punch out just five batters.

And all that tells us nothing about Game 3. Play ball!

World Series Preview Nonsense

In my newspaper Tuesday; in your newspaper too, most likely; indeed in newspapers across America; is a World Series preview. It is written in that time-honored tradition of matching up players from the two teams at each position and assigning one team or the other an edge.

This is a time-honored tradition just as hitting a woman over the head with a club and dragging her to your cave by the hair is a time-honored tradition. By that I mean, it's obsolete, makes no sense, is counterproductive,  stupid and makes the receiver's head hurt without enlightening them.

Unless Daniel Murphy and Ben Zobrist are going to line up against each other across the line of scrimmage, the idea that one of them is a superior second baseman is irrelevant. (Besides that, the AP listed Murphy as the better player. Zobrist produced an .809 OPS and 2 WAR, according to Baseball Reference. Murphy hit for a .770 OPS and 1.4 WAR. Evidently the last six games are more relevant than the entire season, according to them.)

In addition, it weighs each position equally, as if the gaping yaw between Lorenzo Cain and Juan Lagares is equal to the slight edge David Wright has over Mike Moustakas this year.

Then, it examines the starting staffs and adds a point to the team with the superior rotation. Forty percent of the game gets the Mets a credit equal to having a marginally better DH. The same for bullpens, managers and benches. Defense and speed don't seem to get captured at all, except in the player match-ups.

It's all for naught in a short series anyway, but if we're going to read a World Series preview, could it at least make sense?

The Projector Was Broken: Pre-Season Projections Got Everything Wrong

History will little note, nor long remember, what we say here." -- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address. Voted worst prediction in history.

In February, we examined the PECOTA projections for MLB 2015. Based on everything the computers could crunch prior to the start of the season, this is how Baseball Prospectus stacked up all the teams for the 2015 season. Remember that the projections can't predict trades and injuries. They can't predict much else, as you'll see.

The projections had Washington, St. Louis and the Dodgers winning the NL divisions with the Mets, Giants, Marlins and Padres competing for the Wild Cards. That's two of three division winners and two of four Wild Card contestants.

PECOTA saw the Cubs, Pirates and Braves as .500 teams. To that we say: ha!

On the other hand, it correctly tabbed Philly, Cincinnati and Colorado as bottom feeders.

In other words, the fancy computers with their gigagoogles knew about as much as you did with your biases and half-baked opinions. Not exactly an endorsement for SABR membership. About the only thing we can say about the projection is that it recognized improvement in Flushing.

It gets worse. In the junior circuit, PECOTA struck out looking on a fastball down the middle. It identified last place Boston and Detroit as division kings and named the Of Anaheims as the best team in the league. Its Wild Card competitors were the woeful Mariners and A's, along with Tampa. In other words, oh-for-six.

PECOTA projected the top teams in the Central -- Kansas City and Minnesota, who finished a combined 32 games over .500 -- as the AL's two worst teams, with a combined 141-183 record. It did the same for Texas and Houston in the West.

That's as stinkin' wrong as you can get.

In the East, PECOTA projected the Blue Jays a couple of games over .500 and the Yankees a couple of games under. About the only thing the projection system nailed was that all the machinations in Chicago still left the White Sox as poseurs.

In other words, all the fancy algorithms don't know squat. A blind squirrel could have picked one of the division winners. This is the very point I made in this post  eight months ago.

It's not that the seamheads are stupid, or have nothing to add to the conversation, or to our understanding of the game, quite the opposite. It's that baseball is a crazy game that no one can predict, project, prognosticate, portend, prophesize, augur, foretell, forecast or in any way anticipate. That's what we love about it.

So let's all, all of us including the great scientific analysts of the horsehide, just take a chill pill and dial down the...um...what's the word...?

World Series: It's a Tossup

"Predicting the future is easy. Getting it right is the hard part."

Just as you predicted, the Mets and Royals meet for the World Series title. At season's start, projection systems rated the Mets above average. Indeed, Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA system had NY winning the first Wild Card. Alas, it also pegged KC 20 games under .500.

Since those projections were made, each team added some pieces. The Royals nabbed Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist, and over to Flushing went Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe and most notably Yoenis Cespedes. But they are basically the teams that started the season. Particularly in Kansas City's case, it's hard to argue that their trade deadline pitching acquisition (4-7, 4.76) is responsible for their success.

So if you had this quinella in March, please email me immediately with this week's winning Powerball numbers. One hundred dollars on these two teams to meet in the World Series would have yielded you $78,400. Place your bets!

Which leads to the question, who has the edge? Will this be the first championship for a team since 1985 (Royals over Cards) or 1986 (Mets over Red Sox)?

Who Will Win
The answer, as usual, is, "who knows?" It's a seven-game series. The Phillies took five of seven from the Cubs this year. Whatever else you read here is simply subtext.

That said, the Mets and Royals are both acceptable representatives of their leagues, the Royals because they were the best team wire to wire and the Mets because they took off once Cespedes joined the squad and Matz returned from injury. And Wilmer Flores cried.

The dominant narrative is the Mets' power arms against the Royals' broad skill set and experience. That's a simplification, of course, but it is true that New York is much less balanced then Kansas City. Should any two of the Mets' hurlers stumble, it would likely spell disaster for them. You can't fall behind early against the Royals, especially if Ned Yost has "accidentally" given Ryan Madson the wrong directions to the ballpark.

The Edge Goes To...
Starting rotation is the big edge the Mets have, and much is being made of that. But that would be true of any team against KC because they are purposely constructed backwards on the mound. No team is more lethal than KC if their starters can muddle through two-thirds of the game with a lead. This strategy has worked for two seasons and is particularly effective in the playoffs, given the short leashes starters generally have now. Ignore that at your peril.

One more thing about the Mets' rotation. It is over-rated right now. It is over-rated because its youth and promise account for some of its allure, but the World Series is being played this week. We're all projecting out what deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard and Matz could be, and the possibilities make us drool (particularly when we recall that Zack Wheeler will join them next year.)  But the Thor who will face Lorenzo Cain had a 3.25 ERA and a susceptibility to gopher balls.

I've debunked much of the home advantage in the playoffs in this post. (Spoiler alert: it comes into play in a seven-game series only if it goes the distance.) But in this particular case, there is a slight edge to Kansas City. No team is woven more snuggly to its home ballpark than the Royals, who value speed and athleticism over pure power in their wide-gapped stadium. Of course, Citi Field is no homer dome either, so some of that small advantage is offset.

There's always talk about it, but there's no evidence that experience is of any value, particularly now that both teams have run the playoff gauntlet. It is worth observing that no deficit appears insurmountable to the Royals, and whether that's a function of team psychology or skill set, it's a good quality to have. 

Rust, on the other hand, is measurably detrimental to playoff teams. The Mets will have spent nearly a week waiting for the Series to begin by the time they get underway Tuesday. Long rest can help an older team with a key player hobbled by injury and a clear ace they would like to line up for three starts. But none of those advantages accrue to the Mets.

Both teams are managed by men who appear to do a great job molding coherent units out of disparate parts. Terry Collins's in-game strategy gets the edge over Ned Yost's because everyone's in-game strategy gets the edge over Ned Yost's. 

Again, absolutely anything can happen on the road to four wins. Noise is just so loud at that level that a few missed notes here or there might not matter. That said, the Royals have some small advantages and I would rate them slightly more likely to win their first World Series in 30 years. Then again, Al Weiss...

Blue Jays-Royals: Forget the Caricature

If you were drawing a cartoon of the President of the United States of America, you'd give him dumbo ears, a long face with a Rhode Island-sized forehead and a mole that nearly blots out his nose. There's some truth in the caricature, but it's blown out of proportion.

It's easy to fall into the same trap with the Royals-Blue Jays series. You will hear a lot of pitching versus hitting about this match-up. For sure, the Blue Jays were baseball's best team on offense, mashing 232 home runs. And it's true the Royals flash leather, particularly in the outfield, and boast a shutdown bullpen.

But it's a much more nuanced series. For one, these are not the 2014 hitless wonder Royals. That team called three infield singles a rally. This team boasts six above-average starters with the bat and the same basepath scorchers who ran opposing teams ragged last season. Three Royals bopped 20+ home runs.

At the same time, KC's starting rotation is more like five set-up men for the vaunted bullpen. Absent James Shields, last year's ace, its ERA has jumped 30 points.

On the other side of the ledger, the Blue Jays are more than wallbangers. Their moundsmen finished fifth best in the AL, anchored by Cy Young candidate David Price and supported by Marcus Stroman, who posted a 1.67 ERA in 27 frames following return from injury. The bullpen of Roberto Osuna, Aaron Sanchez and Liam Hendricks (Brett Cecil and his sub-one WHIP is on the shelf) gave opponents fits, posting a 137 ERA+.

The real contrast between these two teams, besides the admitted difference in home run power, is the bench. Kansas City's cupboard is largely bare. It contains two defensive replacement/speedsters -- Terrence Gore and Jarrod Dyson, and that's it. As a result, manager Ned Yost simply prints out a pdf of his daily lineup each night. Toronto, by contrast, platoons Chris Colabello and Justin Smoak at first, with the backup on any given night serving as first bench option.

The Royals are more narrowly suited to their home park but the Blue Jays have the superior roster. Both teams have shown grit by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- the Royals in Game Three and the Blue Jays in the series. There's no telling which starving fan base gets rewarded with a World Series appearance -- and that's the way we like it.

How's That Home Field Working For You?

"There's nothing I hate more than nothing. Nothing keeps me up at night. I toss and turn over nothing. Nothing can cause a great big fight." Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, 1988

Oh, that home field advantage! It has catapulted two Wild Cards into the division series and four teams into their League Championship playoffs.

Wait, what's that? It hasn't?

• Road warriors swept the Wild Card play-ins games.
• Road teams have captured exactly half the Division Series wins, not counting tonight's Mets-Dodgers finale. If the home nine wins in L.A., the "advantage" will amount to 5% (a 10-9 record or .526 winning percentage), exactly as noted a fortnight ago in this space.
• Last licks played a role in exactly none of the contests. The team ahead after eight innings won every time.

And while we're inconveniently deflating the long-held myths that have passed for conventional wisdom in baseball, let's examine the myth of the critical first game.

If the Dodgers win their tilt with the Mets tonight, the Game One victor from every series will be watching the League Championship Series on television. Oh-for-four. That's the definition of critical, all right.

Finally, there are those mental calculations people do to predict who will win a series. Specifically, let's look at the ridiculous strategy of comparing pitchers and just assigning the win to the ace.

I calculate that the eight teams in the Division Series would have considered these pitchers aces:
Jacob deGrom - Mets
Clayton Kershaw - Dodgers
Zack Greinke - Dodgers
David Price - Blue Jays
Cole Hamels - Rangers
Jake Arrieta - Cubs
Dallas Keuchel - Astros
Johnny Cueto - Royals

We're having a plumbing problem here. I'm not sure the Cardinals would consider John Lackey their ace and you could make a case for the Cubs' Jon Lester. You could certainly argue against Johnny Cueto, but he was brought to K.C. for just that purpose. So that's three Johns at issue.

Let's see how their teams fared when they pitched:
Cueto - 2-0
Price - 1-1
Keuchel - 1-1
Hamels - 1-1
Kershaw - 1-1
Greinke - 1-0
deGrom - 1-0
Arrieta - 1-0

Greinke and deGrom will split tonight's game, so that's a wash. All told, the team sending its ace to the hill went 10-5. That's superb. It's probably unusual. But in any case, it's hardly automatic. You would love 2-1 odds in your favor for the deciding game, but every third time you would lose.

These are still uselessly small samples. But the point is that when you count something as an automatic, as many people do with the #1 arm, the first game winner and the home team, and it turns out to be a 5% advantage, that's a bit of a myth-buster.

And if you know that's a small sample size, then you know enough to examine a large enough sample -- like playoff games all time. In other words, you examine the facts. And that's when you stop predicting games based on who's got the shorter commute.

The Head Ball Coach Quit On His Team

Here in South Carolina, the state deemed too small to be a nation and too large to be an insane asylum, we're finally over the cop killing of an unarmed black man, the mass murder of nine parishioners in their church and historic flooding that closed more than 500 roads from Columbia to Charleston.

Those stories ended yesterday when the head ball coach suddenly retired. The University of South Carolina, like a lot of southern colleges, is a football team with a university attached. The main purpose of its alumni is to buy tickets to football games.

Now that Steve Spurrier has stepped down without warning, everyone connected with the state, and with SEC football, has spent the past two days lionizing him and his 10-year tenure at the helm of the Gamecocks.

Undoubtedly, Spurrier has lifted the 'Cocks to new heights, including three straight 11-2 seasons in the brutal SEC, wins over arch-rival Clemson and prestigious bowl victories. He has recruited half a dozen of the 10 best players the team has ever produced,. including Jadeveon Clowney, Connor Shaw and Marcus Lattimore. And he retires with the most coaching wins at what locals sadly call "USC." He put the program on the college football map.

What no one seems to have noticed is that the head ball coach has quit on his team. He said it himself: he's leaving because he was frustrated by the 7-6 showing last year and thought the team would be better than the league cellar-dwellers it appears to be this year. He doesn't like the losing and so he has quit.

Just like that. Middle of the season. No heir apparent. Facing a string of tough SEC games.

Imagine if a player decided to quit on the team because it stunk. What would the sports media, the people of South Carolina and Gamecock nation be saying? He lacks character. He's a quitter. He's immature. I'm pretty sure Steve Spurrier would have had some cutting remarks for a juvenile outburst like that.

Is the inventor of Fun 'n' Gun allowed to act like a crybaby just because he's got a legacy? If the 'Cocks, already dealing with the upheaval on the field and in the classroom, go winless in the conference this year, what does that do to recruiting?

The local newspaper is selling Spurrier's departure as selfless, allowing the anonymous assistant coach who succeeds him (without any chance of succeeding) an opportunity to turn the club around. It's plump with speculation about the next big name coach, proposing that South Carolina could lure Bob Stoops from Oklahoma or Mark D'Antoni from Michigan State. They assert that the 11-2 records that Spurrier engineered three-to-five years ago have set the bar higher and will draw a bigger name.

Only someone who has never been to Columbia, SC and is not paying attention to the current state of the team could make such a lame suggestion, and yet residents of that squalid town are the only ones doing it.

No, Spurrier has dropped the team on its head in the middle of the season. He took his ball and went home. He has left South Carolina football high and dry, even after 18 inches of rain. It's as if everyone is wearing a visor -- and has it pulled down over their eyes.