Hall Aflame

At the risk of driving over an old road: I understand how baseball writers can deny steroid users Bonds and Clemens first-ballot Hall of Fame status.

But how do they justify slamming the door in the faces of Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling and Edgar Martinez?

And Mike Piazza? If the greatest hitting catcher of all time isn't a Hall of Famer, then Bowie Kuhn really does belong.

Just for grins, let's recap the career that two of every five writers dismissed. In 15 seasons (plus a cup-a-Joe) he hit .308/.377/.545, the highest OPS for any catcher in history. He belted 427 homers, the most all-time by a guy who primarily caught. That's despite playing all but five games of his career in bomb shelters -- Dodger Stadium, Shea Stadium, Petco  and whatever they call that monstrosity in Oakland.

He hit 43% above average, which is to say twice as well as an average backstop. He hit .300+ for eight straight seasons and finished in the top 10 of MVP voting seven times. With the lumber, he is the superior of everyone in the history of the planet who has ever squatted behind the plate. 

By no accounts was Piazza an asset defensively. Baseball-Reference.com rates his career about replacement level in the field. But that hardly offsets his 63 wins above replacement at the plate. The average HOF catcher is at about 49 wins above replacement. 

There has been some sniffing among the voting writers that links Piazza with steroids. Any journalist  relying on innuendo to besmirch one of the greatest careers in the annals of the sport deserves to be fired, much less have his BBWAA card burned. Since when is innuendo a credible source?

The writers whiffed this year and the result is a HOF ceremony in August that will induct three men long dead before a crowd of dozens and a flood of empty Cooperstown hotel rooms. Bu Selig has got to be cringing. 

The baseball writers have managed the impossible. They've made Gary Bettman look good.

BABIP Regressors: Pitchers to Watch

If you're in the market to sign a starting pitcher, it would be helpful to know what performance to expect from the various options. Unfortunately, while there are plenty of rear view mirrors, only Mr. Peabody & Sherman can tell you what lies ahead, and their time machine stopped working in 1971.

Nonetheless, we gaze into the past and salt our observations with what it all portends. Which brings us to pitcher BABIP.

Research over the years since Voros McCracken elucidated the theory that pitchers don't control the results once a ball is put in play has uncovered a grain of truth in his finding. While some pitchers can maintain a lower BABIP over their entire career, it's still true that large variations from their own established levels can often be attributed to a smiling deity. Because deities are fickle, this element of a player's performance tends not to repeat itself over time.

All of which is a long way of saying that some pitchers appeared to be particularly lucky or unlucky in 2012 and may be expected to deliver more or less of the goods in 2013. 

Let's take a look:

League average BABIP is about .298. That is, batters hit just under .300 when they aren't striking out, homering, walking or getting dinged by pitches. In 2011, Braves lefty Mike Minor suffered through a season of .350 BABIP, so while he pitched solidly, his ERA of 4.14 belied it.

In 2012, the league adjusted to Minor and his performance wasn't nearly as strong. But his ERA held steady (4.12) thanks to a .256 BABIP. Nothing in his underlying performance, or in the defense behind him, suggested such a change. That means Atlanta should hold the reins on expectations for the 25-year-old Vanderbilt man.

If Minor inspires warning flags, the regression sirens have to be blaring around Kyle Lohse. Over the last two years, Lohse is 30-11, 3.10, following a 10-year career of 88-98, 4.50. It's likely that Lohse has figured something out, but BABIPs of .269 and .262, compared to a lifetime BABIP right around league average, hasn't hurt. The music eventually stops, and 2013 is as good a time as any. Add to that his age-34 season and Lohse is in for major regression.

Jeremy Hellickson enjoyed a .262 BABIP last season, but is he in for regression? Hellickson's three-year career in St. Petersburg has been a study in confounding the numbers. Over 403 innings, Hellickson has a career BABIP of .244, which suggests that he might be doing something special (or playing behind a special defense) that's tamping down opponent batting average. Either that or the dude has been abidingly lucky and is going to crash in 2013. Hellickson has a lifetime ERA 0f 3.06, but the statheads suggest he's more like a .450 ERA pitcher. We'll see.

Then there's Gio Gonzalez, who entered MLB in 2008 with Oakland. Here is the arc of Gio's career, expressed in ERA: 
2008 - 7.68
2009 - 5.65
2010 - 3.23
2011 - 3.12
2012 - 2.89

So the fact that batted balls fell safely at just a .267 clip last year doesn't dull his prospects much. Gonzalez has a lifetime BABIP of just .286; perhaps in part because his two home parks, Oakland and Washington, are BABIP dampers; so if he regresses even to his 2011 performance, he's still a star in 2013.

Max Scherzer had a terrific 2012, going 16-7, 3.74 with 231 strikeouts. That last figure helped dull the impact of a .333 BABIP. That's fortunate, because it's likely that a chunk of Scherzer's BABIP lies at the feet of immobile infielders who will be back with the Tigers, barring a major surprise, in 2013.

It's just the opposite for Nathan Eovaldi, the young Marlin righty who relies on his defense more than average. His .316 BABIP in L.A. and Miami was particularly harmful to his stat line, a painful 4-13, 4.30 that overstates his struggles. Given his youth, Eovaldi is headed for what will look like a breakout in 2013.

One last interesting case -- in nearly every respect -- is R.A. Dickey. Kuncklers have a history of outfoxing the whole BABIP system, but Dickey has maintained nearly identical BABIPs around .275 since returning with the scroogie in 2010. It's quite possible that Dickey as not been particularly lucky, just particularly adept, and that his run of extraordinary performances could continue.

Another Spin In the Projection Machine

It might be interesting to consider what's in store for players who have changed teams while the hot stove burns. Here are Bill James's projections for the performances of a handful of key players. 

Remember that these projections were assembled prior to the signings and trades that have dotted the off-season, and that projections are not predictions. And that Bill James is not God. In fact, he finished fourth in the holy trinity.

Josh Hamilton
2012 .285/.354/.577 43 HR 148 games
2013 .289/.356/.540 35 HR 147 games

This is an exceedingly generous projection considering:
1. Hamilton has moved from Arlington to Anaheim, which should punish his stats a bit.
2. The number of games Hamilton has stayed healthy for in a season looks like this: 90, 156, 89, 133, 121, 148. The logical next number is not 147.

R.A. Dickey
2012   20-8, 2.73 in 234 innings, 54 BB, 230 K
2013   16-8, 3.58 in 226 innings, 56 BB, 152 K

Projections on pitchers are difficult enough, but with a unique subject like Dickey who really has no comparables, examining other players is not necessarily helpful. Given that, this projection seems eminently reasonable. This suggests he'll still pitch very well but won't dominate. Translated to Toronto, and the AL Beast, these numbers are likely to degrade further.

Kendrys Morales
2012  .273/.320/.467, 22 HR in 134 games
2013  .284/.332/.489, 23 HR in 137 games

Morales broke out in 2009, his first full season, hitting .306 and smacking 34 homers. Off to another estimable campaign in 2010, he broke his leg jumping on the plate during a walk-off celebration. James is suggesting that last year was Kendrys's new normal, which will be normalized lower playing in Seattle's dead-ball zone. Projections also suggest that he'll want to poke his eyeballs out with hot needles after watching the likes of Jason Bay and Raul Ibanez take their hacks. Speaking of which . . .

Jason Bay
2011  .245/.329/.374, 12 HR in 123 games
2012  .165/.237/.299, eight HR in 70 games
2013  .247/.343/.413, 17 HR in 133 games

So James suggests that Bay will deliver the greatest bounceback from irrelevance as a 35-year-old in MLB history. Of course, the projection system didn't know that Bay would become part of a platoon -- with 104-year-old Raul Ibanez, no less -- making 133 games played (and therefore 17 dingers) as likely as good parenting from the platoon of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

Melky Cabrera
2011 with Royals - .305/.339/.470 in 155 games
2012 with Giants -- .346/.390/.516 in 113 games before his blood turned him in
2013 with Blue Jays -- .295/.348/.432 in 148 games

In other words, the projection system says that not only was 2012 a steroid-induced fluke, 2011 wasn't to be believed either. The 2013 projection isn't much better than Melky's lifetime averages, which, absent the two years in question, were below average. Good luck with that, Blue Jays.

Shane Victorino
2011 with Phils -- .279/.355/.491, 19 steals, 17 HR
2012 with Phils & Dodgers -- .255/.321/.383, 39 steals, 11 HR
2013 with Red Sox -- .269/.338/.418, 29 steals, 14 HR

Can you say, "split the difference?"

Nick Swisher
Lifetime     .256/.361/.467, 25 HR, 84 RBI, 86 R, 84 BB, 134 K
2013           .256/.362/.458, 25 HR, 86 RBI, 82 R, 86 BB, 143 K

Sheesh, I could have projected that. I guess the Indians know who they signed.

Doubtless, one of these players is headed surprisingly south with his performance (unless it's Bay, who already inhabits baseball's Antarctica, and could therefore neither go south nor disappoint) in a manner beyond the capability of the projection system to foresee. Hey, if the game were predictable, it wouldn't be fun.

The Outs Just Keep On Coming!

Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik has decided to have a go at comedy. Check out this hysterical routine:

Having inked to a contract one old shoe -- Jason Bay -- the Mariners have signed his lefty-swinging counterpart -- Raul Ibanez, to a one-year, $2.75 million deal.

Jay Leno, are you listening? This is killer material!

Hey, it's the Mariners' three million, and they can do anything they want with it, including invest it in becoming a punchline. If that's the plan, they can expect a high return on investment.

The 41-year-old out"fielder" squashed 19 home runs in 425 Yankee plate appearances last season, but that's it. A .308 OBP and defensive skills as robust as his hairline scream "end of career." It appears that Zduriencik plans to platoon Bay and Ibanez for a bilateral chump-athon, when instead he could give Michael Saunders, Franklin Guttierez, Mike Carp and Casper Wells a year's worth of at-bats to determine what they can accomplish.

The talk in the Pacific Northwest is that Ibanez adds missing power to the Mariner lineup. But the M's don't lack power so much as they lack hitting. An Ibanez-Bay platoon could help resolve that. Or it could make all of Seattle go blind.

Zduriencik's recent moves have made his team worse. Someone needs to stop him before the Mariners become the Astros.

The NFL's Existential Crisis

In 1970, appointed New York Senator Charles Goodell, a liberal Republican running for a full six-year term, faced an ideological sandwich between Democratic challenger Richard Ottinger on the left and Conservative James Buckley on the right.  Many liberals and moderates asked Goodell to withdraw, but he demurred. Come election day, Ottinger nabbed the liberal vote, Buckley swept the conservative and Goodell's political career went "poof."

But that was nothing for the Goodell family.

Forty-two years later, pity his son Roger, chief executive officer of a $9 billion existential crisis. Goodell has served as the involuntary hatchet man for an industry whose product causes its employees massive physical degradation, traumatic brain injury and early death. The agent of these horrors -- repeated high-speed collisions -- is also the extraordinarily popular main product peddled by Goodell's industry, and his employees not only chafe at his efforts to safeguard their health they revile and deride him. Worse: so do many of his business's best customers.

At the same time, a large group of former employees are suing Goodell's industry for the very policies that current employees vociferously defend. Despite his industry's battalion of deep-pocketed counselors, the lawsuit is a multi-billion-dollar slam dunk.

The current Goodell faces an ideological sandwich similar to his father's and the knowledge that unless he carefully navigates the issue, he could be presiding over the most popular sport in American history also going "poof."

Most challenging for Goodell fils: the lawsuit, the players, the fans, the derision, they're all a sideshow. The commissioner's real challenge is this: the weekly car crashes that devastate players' bodies and threaten his sport are the grist of the NFL mill. Violence is killing the business, but without violence -- head-snapping, bone-crunching, felonious violence -- there is no business. Oh, the humanity.

So Goodell is doing what his father couldn't: manage the clock. He is attempting to slowly parse out the bodily destruction that can be attributed to the league while preserving the essential mayhem that propels the NFL ever upward in the world sports landscape. It's akin to carving out the fat from bacon, which is why it will take time and upset a lot of people. If he fails, Roger Goodell will have presided over the demise of a massive, unsinkable enterprise, legislated and litigated into oblivion.

If he succeeds, he will merely be remembered for ruining the game. And Gary Bettman thought he had problems.

More and More and More Playoffs: Blecch

My newspaper tells me that tonight's NFL tilt between Atlanta and Detroit will help determine whether the Falcons clinch home field advantage on the road to the Super Bowl. The implication is that the contest is significant for this reason despite decades of experience.

In fact, tonight's clash is a near total irrelevance. The last two Super Bowl champs staggered to 9-7 records and slipped into the playoffs in the last week before eliminating all those 13-3 and 12-4 behemoths with home field advantage.

In fact, in American professional sports today simply making the playoffs is the entire goal. Period. After that, flip a coin.

Don't believe me? The football Giants weren't the only team last year to parlay a mediocre regular season into a crown. The L.A. Kings stumbled into the NHL playoffs with more losses than wins, qualified last and then swept through their conference with easy wins over the #1, #2 and #3 seeds before winning the cup in six games.

The 2011 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals snuck into the post-season on the last day of the regular season with the worst record in the playoffs. (The 2012 World Series champs, the division-winning S.F. Giants, were a legitimate champion.)

During a thankfully truncated NBA season, the Miami Heat faced boobirds and derision because of a 9-8 start before capturing the #2 seed in the East and winning it all.

So when the NHL announces that half its season is lost, even hockey fans should applaud. Forty games seems about right if all they're going to do is eliminate a handful of awful teams. (On the other hand, the league and its players appear on the verge of another Armageddon. All involved have a bright future in Congress, once they earn their American citizenship.)

And we should all laugh when the sport's advocates promote a meaningless match-up like tonight's Falcon-Lion snoozer, as a playoff positioner. Anyone paying the least bit of attention anytime over the last three decades realizes there's no such thing.

A good rule of thumb for playoffs should be this: Qualifying should be sufficiently difficult that some good teams get left out. That ensures that playoff qualifying is an accomplishment and that a good team will win the title irrespective of who catches fire for a couple of weeks in the post-season. Major League baseball and the NFL are both straddling the line, which the NBA and NHL long ago breached.

The NFL is reportedly considering the addition of two more teams to its playoff lineup. It is difficult to overstate how awesomely awful this idea is. Adding two more palyoff slots guarantees that an 8-8 team will parlay a couple of fluke wins into a Super Bowl championship. Blecch.

A Great Trade for Toronto

You, perhaps, comprehend the recent blockbuster trade between Tampa Bay and Kansas City. Perhaps you grasp string theory, follow NHL negotiations and appreciate the subtle talent of Demi Lovato. Or perhaps you're one of the general managers involved. For the rest of us in the baseball universe, the Tampa-KC deal was a Christmas-time Gift of the Magi.

With the Yankees diving headlong towards the salary cap, the Red Sox scrambling back to relevance and the Orioles seeking a new bottle for their lightning, the pitching-rich Rays appeared ready to enter 2013 a co-favorite for the AL East title.

The Royals, meanwhile, are still mixing up potions to consolidate the talent they've amassed on their roster with all those high draft picks. Absent the elusive formula, they remain a second-division team.

And yet, the franchise with the distant horizon flipped long-term investments for instant gratification, while the franchise aiming to fly its flag this year relinquished a key piece of the puzzle for a possible future bonanza. Suddenly, explaining the general theory of relativity seems simple.

Specifically, the Royals sent minor league outfielder Wil Myers, a top-10 prospect, along with three other farmhands of various promise, for James Shields, an All-Star hurler and Wade Davis,  a mid-rotation righty who pitched effectively out of the bullpen in 2012. While Myers and his comrades were KC's for six years of cost control, the two Major Leaguers they landed in return are signed for two years at $29 - $35 million, plus three option years on Davis at $25 million with a $2.5 million buyout.

Similarly, Tampa dumped their #2 starter and a useful bullpen piece for future returns just as the rest of the division has stepped back and left them to catch the bouquet. They save millions of dollars, for sure, but that's not how you win a pennant. They are betting on minor leaguers, none of whom is likely to contribute at the MLB level this coming season, if ever.

This is an Arty the Smarty transaction in which both sides are swimming against the current. Even if Shields and Davis deliver steak as expected, the good people of western Missouri still have to choke down lumpy mashed potatoes and creamed spinach along with them. This deal suggests that GM Dayton Moore dreams of a .500 season. And won't Rays GM Andrew Friedman be kicking himself if the team skids to within a few games of the playoffs for want of a #2 starter while this bag of goodies spends the year developing in Durham?

If you're Friedman or Moore, perhaps you can explain this. Perhaps the Royals believe that their talent-laden lineup is ready to metamorphose in 2013 and a pair of Major League arms will catapult them to the top of a weak division. Perhaps Tampa Bay believes it has squeezed all the quality it can out of Shields and will use the pocketed funds to fill holes at first, DH or back in the rotation. Only they know.

On face value though, this deal fails the smell test for both sides. But it looks great for the pennant hopes of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Insight on the Hall of Fame (not mine)

A 22-year-old Deadspin intern has offered the most cogent argument I've read against barring the Hall of Fame door against Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, et. al. 

Read David Roher's perspective here at Baseball Prospectus. Here's an excerpt:

"But the writers will never do that, [advocate for the removal of all players who set a bad example for children] because their case against steroid users has nothing to do with history and everything to do with their own nostalgia and insecurity. Just as the baseball establishment of the 1960s scrambled to find a way to keep Babe Ruth ahead of Roger Maris, it is now trying to find a way to keep Roger Maris ahead of Bonds and Mark McGwire. The naysayers are killing two birds with one stone: they’re assuring their inner child that Mantle and Mays are way better than the new cheaters, while assuring their outer adult that they’re mature enough to care about morality in sports."

Another Unnecessary Flogging of Poor Jeff Francoeur

A special shout out to the Kansas City Royals for their continuing employment of Jeff Francoeur. The well-traveled right fielder is to baseball's new analysis what Pat Robertson is to liberals and Barney Frank is to conservatives: if he didn't exist we'd have to invent him. He consolidates the base and attracts independents to our side.

So begging forgiveness from the Francoeur family for relentlessly tweaking their kin, here is the annual recitation of his deficiencies, the kind that largely escape the gaze of sportswriters who still think the Triple Crown is the be-all and end-all.

Francoeur last season smacked 16 home runs while playing his home games in a spacious park, and he did so while taking home baseball table scraps of $6.75 million. At 6'4" and 220, the Atlanta native is a strapping and chiseled hunk who flashes the tools of his trade and apparently delights his teammates with his bonhomie. All that might endear him to traditionalists.

Now look at the rest of his resume: In 2012, he hit .235/.287/.378, which means he made an out 71.3% of the time. He got caught stealing seven of his 11 attempts, fanned 119 times while walking just 34 and, according to the three major fielding metric systems, butchered the nine-hole. According to Baseball Prospectus, Francoeur cost the Royals three wins compared to any arbitrary Triple-A replacement earning the league minimum. They are kind: Baseball-Reference says he cost them 3.2 wins.

For his career, Francoeur is now at .266/.310/.426, fifth outfielder credentials. Despite 137 home runs and that gun attached to his right shoulder, he has contributed to his teams between two and five wins over eight seasons, almost all of it in 2011. For that they have recompensed him more than $18 million, with another $7.5 million due in 2013.

Francoeur's issue, as you are probably all too aware, is that he is utterly bereft of strike zone command. In his career, he has walked merely five percent of the time, meaning that pitchers know he will offer at whatever putrid slop they shovel before him. The result is that unless he bats .300, he has little value, and even with his intuitive skills .300 is a pipe dream when you swing at everything. Additionally, while he's an assassin against base runners, he's a sitting duck on the base paths, costing his teams 21 extra outs attempting to steal.

Francoeur is at this point what he is, a placeholder until the Royals . . . um . . . get contracted? He will never contribute significantly to winning baseball, and no team with pennant aspirations should ever hire him unless they need someone to model their unis.

Phillies Get Young, Old

In the history of humankind, every empire has dissolved for the same reason: it failed to recognize that its shrinking economy could no longer sustain its foreign adventures.

It appears that Ruben Amaro, Jr. is no student of history.  

The Phillies' general manager, he of the big splash variety, continues to send his warships to sea while apparently oblivious to the dilapidated state of the franchise back home. An aging squad with depreciating assets, they are no longer the division-winning Phillies of '07-'11. HMS Werth, Victorino, Pence, Lidge and Ibanez are gone and HMS Rollins, Utley, Polanco and Howard are taking on water fast. But for three of baseball's best starting pitchers and incompetent competition in Miami, this is a last place team.

And now, Amaro has spent $6 million and a pair of farmhands -- one of whom is considered a real prospect -- to fill third base with a rusting Michael Young. In a sense, Young is a real Phillie: a former star who has burned up most of his gas. At 36 last season he appropriately saw most of his time at DH and 1B and for the first time battled injuries and ineffectiveness at the plate. His last 100 games or so at third base have not been pretty even when he could hit.

While Texas dances a little jig that they unloaded Young and got something in return, even if they have to eat $10 million, the Phils can expect pretty much replacement level results at the hot corner. For that, they could have signed Eric Chavez for a nice fruit salad and platooned him with Kevin Frandsen, who hit .338 in 195 at bats last season and is arbitration eligible for the first time.

Michael Young is a talented hitter who might hit .300 again and provide a win or two in Philadelphia, though at his age that's no longer the way to bet. But to what purpose? The Phils need to regroup, not reload with empty uniforms. Amaro seemed to understand that when he flipped Victorino and Pence last season for prospects.

This is a pretty minor deal that likely won't alter Philadelphia's prospects much in '13. But if it's representative of Amaro's mindset going into the season, God help the poor beleaguered fans of that city. They've already had to endure the Eagles, 76ers and Flyers. At least the Freedoms got a song.

Jason Bay, You Complete Us

The Seattle Mariners have reportedly signed Jason Bay to a one-year contract. This makes perfect sense if the Mariners have been justifiably relegated to Triple-A. Or if the Mariners have signed Bay to the position of clubhouse attendant.

Adding Jason Bay to the Mariners is like putting ketchup on a tomato. Except ketchup is good. Jason Bay batted .054 when behind in the count last year. Let's say it's like rubbing your dirt in mud. It's like Lindsay Lohan marrying Kanye West. 

Combining Jason Bay and the offensively-challenged Mariners is like keying a junker. What's the point? It seems redundant. Like yin and yin -- with bad feng shui added in.

The  Mariners' singular outstanding characteristic is that for the last half decade they have hit like girls. Their best hitters last year were gentlemen named John Jaso, Kyle Seager and Michael Saunders. These are players who would be unrecognized by Mariner fans if there were any left. Seager and Saunders reached base 31.6% and 30.6% of the time respectively last year. 

So Bay should feel right at home. Last year, he slugged .299 for the Mets, which is impressive considering he batted .165 and posted a .237 on base percentage. (That doesn't include his .133 batting average and no extra base hits in 20 plate appearances at Single-A.) Of course, he hit nothing while staggering around the clubhouse with a series of ailments that consumed a third of his season.

In short, Jason Bay followed a lousy 2010 with an awful 2011 that was a mere prelude to 2012. And the Seattle Mariners, a team with an on base percentage under .300 the last three years, has added him to their roster. This is the quintessential case of gilding the lily. Except by "gilding" we mean "fertilizing" and by "lily" we mean "cesspool." 

Enjoy 2013, Mariner fans, wherever you are!

Hall of Flameouts, Writer Edition

The day Boom Boom Mancini climbed into the ring with Duk Koo Kim, he could hardly have known that he was about to make history, and not the kind he'd want to write home to Youngstown about.

Nor did Greg Norman know, entering the final round of the 1996 Masters, the thrashing that history would bestow upon him.

Likewise, Wally Pipp probably never considered how a day off would turn into a headache that would linger thereafter in the record books. (For the record, the whole headache story is a myth.)

In the coming weeks, members of the Baseball Writers Association of America will very likely thrust themselves into the trash bin of history, possibly without realizing the folly with which future generations will view their decisions. Sometime before January 9, the writers will almost certainly reject the Hall of Fame candidacies of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza and Sammy Sosa.

In case you're not keeping score at home, that would be MLB's greatest power/speed combination and home run king, the most fearsome pitcher of his generation, the 10th all-time home run hitter who retired with a .982 OPS, the greatest hitting catcher ever, and the only player in the game's 140 years to hit 60+ home runs in three different seasons. The history books are already warming up a good guffaw.

If all goes as threatened, the Hall of Fame will be absent the group above in addition to the all-time hits leader (Pete Rose), the third greatest hitter for average of all-time (Joe Jackson) and the man who transformed players from chattel to multimillionaires (Marvin Miller). It will, however, include an empty suit (Bowie Kuhn) and a long list of mediocrities, most of whose HOF cases, if you could call them that, rested on high batting averages in an era of high batting averages (Lloyd Waner, Rick Ferrell and Freddie Lindstrom among others). While the writers pass on the list above, they seem poised to coronate a pitcher (Jack Morris) with a 3.90 lifetime  ERA and about as much value to his teams as, say,  Lon Werneke. Yes, the Arkansas Hummingbird himself.

It makes you wonder why they don't just roll up the sidewalks of Cooperstown and forget it ever existed. A Baseball Hall of Fame without Pete Rose, Marvin Miller, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens is the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame without the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bill Graham.

And yet, I don't blame the writers. They have the awesome responsibility of dissecting krill from the baleen of blue whales. No one will ever know for sure if, when and how much the needle contributed to the resumes of the aforementioned, nor if, when and how much it contributed to those whose reputations have yet been sullied. They must distinguish greatness in a swirl of uncertainty through the haze of impropriety.

If history's derision doesn't move the writers to admit a few of the behemoths perhaps a logistical problem will. A major front is brewing over the next two years that threatens ballot mayhem by 2014. This year's selections include legitimate candidates Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Curt Schilling and Edgar Martinez. (Also aboard: Alan Trammel, Larry Walker and Kenny Lofton, who come up short, in my view.) Entering the ballot the following year will be Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina and Frank Thomas -- again, all worthy.  With Clemens, Bonds, McGwire and Piazza, that's 13 candidates -- 14 with Sosa -- and only 10 votes per ballot. The logjam could cause serious gridlock for years. A writer with a multi-year time horizon would be well-served admitting a gaggle of those eligible.

Whatever the writers decide today will be fodder for their 2062 brethren, who are likely to sniff the dominance of Bonds, Clemens and their ilk and wonder what their progenitors were smoking. BBWAA, you've had your warning, which is more than Ray Mancini got.

More Fun With the Projector

Do you fantasize about Paul Goldschmidt's 2013 longball contributions to your keeper league team? Is Trevor Plouffe's second-year power surge and position flexibility dancing in your Hot Stove dreams?  Are you dying to see the gauge on Andy Pettite's gas tank?

Then it's time to talk more projections. Bill James is out with the first set and there's plenty to feast on. First, if you haven't read the rules of the road, they're here. Keep in mind that making predictions is easy; getting them right is hard. (Besides, these aren't predictions, they're projections. Stalagmite, stalactite.)

So let's peek ahead at what's in store for a handful of intriguing players for 2013.

Ichiro Suzuki
2010 .315/.359/.394
2011 .272/.310/.335
2012 .283/.307/.390
2013 .294/331/.370

Ichiro is the only 39-year-old on the planet projected for a bounce-back. That's due in large part to his second-half burst with the Yankees last season (.322/.340/.454) and in part to the assumption that he'll be leading off with Murder's Row behind him in the Bronx's Offense Smiley Face Stadium.

Justin Morneau
2010 .345/.437/.618, 18 homers in 81 games
2011 .227/.285/.333, 4 homers in 69 games
2012 .267/.333/.440, 19 homers in 134 games
2013 .271/.348/.459, 21 homers in 137 games

Multiple concussions derailed a near-great career but Morneau quietly rebounded last year with a nearly full season. His on-base and slugging skills have not returned with him though, leaving him a below-average first-baseman. James's projection tools suggest, alas, that Morneau has roughly found his new level.

Carl Crawford
2010 .307/.356/.495, 47 steals
2011 .255/.289/.405, 18 steals
2012 .282/.306/.479, 5 steals (31 games)
2013 .274/.318/.413, 36 steals

Before Dodger fans jump out their windows over this desultory projection, they should remember that this is a repeat of Crawford's 2008 in St. Petersburg when the Rays went to the World Series. In offense-crushing Chavez Ravine, this is more faint praise than damning and if any part of the equation rests on Crawford's rehabbing elbow then better days may lie ahead. That's important to L.A. because he's signed to a king's ransom through his 36th birthday in 2017.

Starlin Castro
2011 .307/.341/.432, 10 homers, nine triples, 35 BB, 96 K, 22/9 in steals
2012 .283/.323/.430, 14 homers, 12 triples, 36 BB, 100 K, 25/13 in steals
2013 .304/.346/.448, 12 homers, 10 triples, 38 BB, 86 K, 24/12 in steals

If this looks familiar it's because it's Alfonso Soriano's early career: a speedy, undisciplined middle infielder with good bat control and occasional pop. The question for the Castro is whether he develops his power or some discipline, or optimally, both. James's system has the arrow pointing towards an uptick in strike zone aptitude, which will be necessary if BABIP ever turns on the Cubs' shortstop. This is a guy with high potential for turning the corner to super-stardom or face-planting on a sub-.300 OBP and an impatient manager.

Paul Goldschmidt
2011 .250/.333/.474, 8 homers in 48 games
2012 .286/.359/.490, 20 homers in 145 games
2013 .283/.375/.501, 27 homers in 153 games


Well, since you asked. While you were busy watching amateurs croon and celebrities prance on your home glow box, this 230-pound first baseman authored an adept first chapter in MLB. With just 177 plate appearances in his rearview, Goldschmidt gave Arizona a batting line 23% above average and 3.7 wins above replacement. The projector suggests that Goldschmidt is on his way to becoming a "Three True Outcomes" player who fans, walks and wallops homers at high rates. (Think Adam Dunn, Mark Reynolds.) When guys like that hit .283 they're major contributors.

We'll take a few more strolls through this meadow over the course of the long baseball-less winter.

Shining the Projector on 2013

In his rookie year of 2010, Ike Davis burst into Metville with a solid full season of .264/.351/.440 and 19 home runs. With good defense, he produced three-and-a-half wins over a replacement-level first baseman. Not too shabby. Met fans had high hopes for the future.

Davis was hurt in 2011, but his 2012 confounded everyone by leaping in the power department while collapsing in the on-base arena. He smacked 32 homers but batted just .227 and got on base at a weak .308 clip. Despite the power surge, he was worth less than half as much at the plate.

So which Ike is the real Ike? What can we expect from 2013?

Statistical projection systems help make sense of these kinds of players by parsing the components of their results, comparing them to comparable players through history, and adjusting for ballpark, league, era, and age. In Davis's case, the essential components of his performance didn't change, but bad luck truncated his batting average on balls in play from a slightly above average .321 to a miserable .246, dragging down his batting average.

Assuming a regression to normal batting average on balls in play (BABIP), Bill James projects that Davis will rebound to a .266 batting average and a .354 on base percentage. Met fans will be delighted to know that there isn't any reason to expect his power to decline. James projects Davis will hit 31 bombs and slug .511. In other words, history says that Ike Davis is the guy who sprung from the gate in 2010, not the baffling slugger of 2012, and now that he's two years older, should be even better.

Projection systems aren't predictions; they are guesses educated by 130 years of baseball history, leavened by data that can illuminate why a hitter performed as he did. If Davis's strikeout rate had leaped, or he suddenly hit many more pop-ups, or the percentage of his fly balls leaving the park had skyrocketed, James would be considerably less sanguine about Ike's future.

In short, statistical projection systems have discovered some basic rules to suggest how players will perform going forward. Many players defy the historical standards and completely elude their projections, but these are generally good guides. Here are some basic rules governing the projections:
1. As batters age, particularly as they get near and then past 30, they tend to hit for lower average and more power, walk more, strikeout more, and steal less.
2. Young players with high on-base skills tend to decline faster because they can't add that skill as they age.
3. Perhaps counter-intuitively, fleet players have longer careers with flatter aging curves.
4. Batters who break out suddenly from established performance norms generally regress about halfway to their mean thereafter. A guy with a .250 batting average and 15 homers a year over six seasons who suddenly hits .300 with 35 homers can be expected to hit roughly .275 with 25 bombs the following campaign.
5. Low average sluggers with big bodies tend to fall of a cliff. When they lose a split second of timing the fat lady starts singing.
6. Component statistics can add a great deal of information to the above. For example, strikeout rates can indicate if a batter is losing bat speed or becoming more disciplined even if his results don't change. Another example: a big variation in BABIP generally means luck has infiltrated the results and likely won't stick around another year.

Knowing all this, let's see what James says about some interesting players:

Mike Trout
2012  .326/.399/.524, 30 homers, 49 steals
2013  .325/.402/.544, 30 homers, 53 steals

This boggles the mind. According to James, Trout will follow perhaps the greatest 20-year-old season in history with an almost identical 21-year-old season, even though Trout batted .383 on balls in play last year. That BABIP is sky high because Trout runs well and hits the ball hard.


Edwin Encarnacion
2011 .272/.334/.453, 17 homers, 8 steals
2012  .280/.384/.557, 42 homers, 17 steals
2013  .271/.359/.504, 31 homers, 9 steals

As you might imagine, James projects Encarnacion in 2013 to post on base and slugging percentages almost exactly halfway between his established norm and last year's breakout season. Because Encarnacion is turning 30, we might ordinarily expect an uptick in his home run numbers, which accounts for the high 2013 home run tally.

 
Dan Uggla
2011 .233/.311/.453, 36 homers, 62 walks
2012  .220/.348/.384, 19 homers, 94 walks
2013  .271/.341/.439, 28 homers, 84 walks

Uggla is an enigma wrapped in a fireplug. In 2010 he added another stellar year to his Marlin resume, batting .287 with 33 blasts from his second base position. In 2011 he couldn't buy a hit in the season's early months with the Braves and finished at .233, but with 36 dingers. Last season the batting average and power spasmed, but he led the league in walks. Without historical comparisons, projection systems spasm too.


A.J. Pierzynski
2011 .287/.323/.405, 8 homers
2012  .278/.306/.501, 27 homers
2013  .269/.310/.422, 17 homers

The White Sox catcher is a free agent and James's projection should serve as a caveat to any team thinking of signing him for an offensive injection. Pierzynski was the same hitter in '12 as in '11, except he suddenly made a habit of leaving the yard. The projection system is not particularly impressed, probably because at 36 he's reaching the cul de sac of his career.


Mike Napoli 
2010 .238/.316/.438, 26 homers
2011 .320/.414/.631, 30 homers
2012 .227/.343/.469, 24 homers 
2013 .240/.350/.498, 29 homers

So Mike Napoli is a slugging catcher who doesn't hit for average. Except BOOM! when he does. What do you do with this guy, particularly considering he spent 2010 playing home games in Anaheim, 2011 and 2012 in Arlington and will spend 2013 in, well, we'll get back to you on that?


Albert Pujols
2009 .327/.443/.658, 47 homers 104 BB/54 K
2010 .312/.414/.596, 42 homers  103 BB/76 K
2011 .299/.366/.541, 37 homers  61 BB/58 K
2012  .285/.343/.514, 30 homers  52 BB/76 K
2013  .305/.394/.564, 38 homers  84 BB/73 K

Albert Pujols is the fastest car at Indy, but for the last three laps it's been running out of fuel. His batting average, on-base, slugging, home runs and walk rate have all declined for three consecutive years while his strikeout rate has creeped up. Yet James projects improvement in every aspect of Prince Albert's game at age 33. The projector is broken.

These kinds of projections are the result of the atomizing of offensive data. Because pitching and defense are more difficult to capture, the projections for pitchers are less useful, but we'll take a look down the road.

All of James's projections can be found by subscribing to Baseball Info Solutions.

Thankful

On Thanksgiving, it is proper to take a moment to ruminate over our many blessings, such as that we're not a turkey, or a Royals fan. Anymore.

My gratitude to others:

I give thanks for the "traditionalists" who claim to hate baseball statistics and then misuse them to justify foolish positions. They make possible the endless arguments that bring joy to the interstitial spaces between pitches, at bats and innings.

I give thanks for the Luddites who refuse to learn anything new about baseball, as if willful ignorance is a life strategy. A weak beam like me positively shimmers in contrast to dull mattes like that.

I give thanks for the innumerate journalists who assume that if analysis is beyond their understanding it can't be valuable. They allow a third-rate amateur blogger to produce more insightful opinions in his spare time than they do vocationally.

I give thanks for the slow learners who aren't prepared to rush into the embrace of new statistics developed just 33 years earlier and tested rigorously since, the kind of examination that exposes the irrelevance of RBIs and pitcher wins. They allow a new breed of open-minded fans to converse at a higher plane than they can fathom.

I give thanks for the robotic seamheads who forget that real humans play the game. They give cover to lunkheads still dog-paddling in the shallow end of the knowledge pool and spur the debates that I so enjoy.

But mostly, I give thanks for being born rich and free in America where I have the luxury to waste time on frivolous pursuits like this with a full stomach and the security that it will all be there tomorrow.

A Brief Interlude For the Upcoming Playoff

"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need."  --The Rolling Stones

College football fans have forever bemoaned the lack of a playoff to determine a national champion. That they've had such a structure for a decade has either escaped their notice or rattled them into cognitive dissonance. A single-game showdown between the best two teams is a playoff.

Still, college football fandom demands a four-team or eight team tournament. This year, no thanks to the NCAA, a playoff structure has emerged that's three rounds deep with two games left in the season. The whining continues unabated as this inconvenient truth has yet to settle in. Let's take the ride together, shall we?

Notre Dame has a semi-final scrum this weekend against the team claiming to be Southern Cal. If Our Lady wins, they go to the championship. Lose and they're out. That's a playoff game.

Alabama and Georgia both have quarter-final walkovers this weekend against state rivals Auburn and Georgia Tech respectively. The former is a hoodoo and the latter is a fake, so the Crimson Tide and Dawgs should advance with little resistance. Lose, against all odds -- and in this case I'm looking only at you, Georgia, since an Auburn upset could be considered nothing less than an optical illusion -- and the league championship the following week would simply be a consolation game. Assuming the cosmos remains intact, Alabama and Georgia will square off in two weeks with the SEC crown and a slot in the national title game in the balance.

Oregon, now ranked fourth, visits Corvalis for the inaptly named Civil War (in Oregon?) this weekend. A Notre Dame defeat opens the door for their contest to serve as a semi-final as well, unless Stanford slips against UCLA, allowing Oregon into the Pac-12 championship game. That would, ironically, bump this week's contest back to a quarter-final with the league title game as a possible semi-final.

Florida plays Florida State this weekend in a matchup that had lost much of its luster in recent years, but could serve as a national semi-final now. A couple of well-placed results could land the victor in the national title tilt. You may be thinking that it's unlikely that Notre Dame and Oregon would both lose, (or that one would succumb while Georgia and Alabama both split) but then you would already be forgetting the events of the weekend past.

In none of these scenarios does an eligible undefeated team get left out, a two-loss team hop over one-loss contenders or a one-loss team out-flank any serious one-loss contenders, except perhaps Notre Dame, which has its future in its own hands. (Kansas State might squawk about that, but such is the penalty for losing to a Baylor squad that entered their game 1-5 in league play.) Even the lowest ranked team named here, the one-loss Seminoles, would have vanquished #9 Clemson and #5 Florida among its victories.

Thus, up to six formidable teams are still vying for the championship. They will play up to seven determinative football games these next two weeks, and in no case will a loser nonetheless slip into the championship picture. That, my friends, is a playoff. The only thing left to complain about is that there's no reasonable cause for complaint.

Unless you're an Ohio State fan.

The Yankees' Fiscal Cliff

As we approach the end of the year, our national impolitic faces the specter of punitive cuts in everything from social services to defense about which economists aren't in unanimous agreement of jackknifing us back into recession only because some modeling suggests depression instead.

Faced with this, left-wing idealouges and right-wing stonewallers in Congress have reached consensus on the following: they are prepared to compromise as long as the other side agrees to their stipulations. The result is an economic ship in stormy seas with no one at the helm.

Could the Yankees be on the same collision course? The team has anchored itself to some long-term contracts that figure to get right ugly with the passage of time.

Coming off an MVP quality season in 2007, when he punished the American League with 54 homers, 24 steals and a .422 OBP, Alex Rodriguez tore up the most egregious contract in MLB history in search of even more. Having already taken $200 million of Tom Hicks' money, ARod coaxed the Yankees into committing $275 million of George Steinbrenner's over the following 10 years. 

Although it seemed unlikely that Rodriguez could find another partner willing to go steady for a decade at anywhere near that rate, or a franchise dumb enough to commit while being smart enough to contend, the Yankees eyed their below-replacement-level replacements at third base and blinked. If the Treasury was being raided while they danced, at least they got the prettiest girl at the party.

Except age was getting into Alex's system just as the muscle-building agents were cycling out. In '08 and '09, at age 31 and 32, ARod ceased to be ARodian, but simply great at the plate and missed 24 and 38 games for the first time in his career. In the three years since, he's averaged 119 games, a .350 OBP and declining range at third base, all for $92 million.

And it gets worse. ARod will make $114 million from now, age 37, until age 42, during which projections suggest he'll contribute around three wins above a replacement for New York. Those projections are based on him playing roughly full-time during that stint, which seems only slightly more likely than his joining the priesthood.

Particularly for a company awash in cash, that's a waste of money, not a fiscal cliff. But a declining Mark Teixeira presents the same dilemma. Coming off 54 magical games with Anaheim in '08, during which Tex hit.358/449/.632, Brian Cashman inked what appeared to be an eminently sensible eight-year, $180 million deal with the steady first baseman.

Since then, Teixeira has gone steadily downhill. Having never posted an OBP below .370 when he donned the pinstripes, he's declined every years since, down to .332 this past season. Teixeira enters his age 33 season with real question marks, but none of them are attached to a contract that obligates the Steinbrenners to pay him $90 million over the next four years. 

Pile on the $119 owed to CC Sabathia through 2017 and impending free agency for Curtis Granderson and most notably Robinson Cano and even the Yankees may be approaching their debt ceiling. Should a couple of these players hit the wall while under contract, the roster could get old, average and awfully expensive simultaneously.

Obviously Yankees, Inc. is better positioned to withstand such financial hardships better than are the Kansas City Royals, or the Republic of Congo, for that matter. But Hank and Hal have whinnied about sliding back under the $189 million luxury tax threshold, of which the five players above will siphon off more than $100 million regardless of whether they're roster-worthy. 

If you love baseball you'll be rooting for it all to come tumbling down simultaneously. My heart goes out to the metro area in the wake of Sandy (and so did some of my money), but a Yankee implosion is the kind of natural disaster that the rest of the country can enjoy and even benefit from. A few years of AL East dominance by Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Toronto would be a nice change of pace.

Kind of like a sensible compromise in Washington that reduces deficits without slowing economic growth. Don't hold your breath for that one.

Flounder or Fly: The Marlins and Blue Jays

Sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don't. Almond Joy has nuts; Mounds don't.


Marlins owner Jeff Loria may not have nuts, but he's got balls, catapulting the Federal Reserve at high-profile free agents in order to get a stadium built on the public dime and then jettisoning his shiny new toys months later.


He isn't nuts though. Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell, playing beside Hanley Ramirez, Josh Johnson and Giancarlo Stanton, delivered 93 losses last season. Plan B could hardly be worse.

If this is, in fact, Plan B. Miami backloaded the big money contracts with a dump truck, perhaps so future trade partners would endure the bulk of the burden. Buehrle signed for $6 million in '12 (a big pay cut) but $48 million over the next three years. Reyes gets $10 million each of his first two seasons (also a pay cut) and $22 million each of the last four. Bell also traded a small downgrade to $6 million in year one for $9 million in years two-through-four, a contract already $6 million too fat.

But that's a problem for another team. Bell is now the D-backs' albatross, with help from an $8 million Marlin subsidy. Meanwhile, Reyes and Buehrle, along with every Marlin asset not named Stanton, will henceforth toil in Ontario while Miami pursues its post-World Series formula of stocking up prospects and cashing in on the cheap.

Except that it doesn't appear Loria got much in the futures market from the Blue Jays, almost certainly because of the artificially high price of his asset bundle. Enjoy your gaudy new nuthouse, Miamiheads! No lines at the ticket windows!

The Blue Jays are a lot poorer right now, but they aren't nuts. GM Alex Anthopoulos, who managed last year to trade Vernon Wells's toxic contract and get a better player in return, is striking when the iron is hot. Yankee teeth are getting long, Boston is back-pedaling and Baltimore's fairy godmother is busy waving her wand at Notre Dame. The AL East is as ripe for the taking as it's ever been and Double-A is pouncing, cost-be-damned. He's getting help from the Loonie too: having once cowered in the greenback's shadow, the Canadian dollar now looks eye-to-eye at its devalued American cousin.

Even after shopping for stars at the Marlins Everything Must Go sale and inking the discount purchase of presumably unjuiced Melky Cabrera, the Jays have holes. Adding Johnson and Buehrle gives them just three good starters. An outfield of Jose Bautista, Colby Rasmus and Melky Cabrera could be sick, or if the latter two revert to previous form, could make Canadians sick. There are plenty of other issues, but plenty of time to purchase solutions.

We'll find out in 2013 whether the fishy Marlin strategy or the soaring Blue Jay formula pays dividends.

6,930,001

The post-MVP vote storm has subsided and few minds have been expanded. Miguel Cabrera, a better MVP candidate than everyone in the American League -- by Prince Fielder's waistline -- except for Mike Trout, won the award. 

There are two simple conclusions to draw: 

1. The optimist's: a player with an MVP-quality season was so honored. The result was far from the travesty sometimes reported.
2. And the pessimist's: the MVP didn't get the hardware. The fight for knowledge is incomplete.

The "traditionalists" who focused on the Triple Crown and a playoff berth, previously debunked here and so many elsewheres that a Google search of Mike Trout MVP yields 6,930,0000 returns, have attempted to demonstrate that 59 is more than 76. (Their respective offensive runs against replacement.) That dog won't hunt, but if you don't hunt, and you've never had a dog, it's hard to understand. To the rest of us, the argument is transparently false.

On the other hand, 59 is more than 53 and 49 and every other number in the league. So there's that.

Cry not for Mike Trout. He's 21. He'd be well-advised to lease a gigantic trophy case. 

As for the writers and their fellow travelers, hey, it's only been 33 years since Bill James's first Baseball Abstract. Give them time to adjust.

Oh Yeah, It's a Baseball Blog

For the 35th straight year, I exercised my franchise today. On the national level it was a pretty desultory affair, like scoring a run in a consolation game. No matter the outcome I wouldn't feel like a winner.

On the local level, though, I had the thrilling opportunity to cast my ballot either for people running unopposed or not at all. Choice is over-rated.

I did vote for the incumbent Receiver of Taxes, despite the lack of alternative. When it comes to receiving my taxes, she receives them like nobody's business. I mean, she's the Yadier Molina of receiving taxes. Every time I've sent her my taxes, by golly, she's received them. I'm not aware of our tax backstop being charged with a single Passed Tax all year. I don't know anything about her offensive skills, nor even how that metaphor would work, but based on her receiving skills, vis-a-vis taxes, she earned my vote.

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I heard a rumor that the NHL has fiddled away its November schedule while Nome burns. (Nome is cold. I presume they like hockey.) Two more months to go. A 40-game schedule beginning in January to eliminate the frauds, posers and ne'er-do-wells before the real season begins sounds about right.

I also heard that Laker fans were apoplectic because their team hiccuped in its first two games. Of an 82-game season. Whose only purpose is to weed out the incorrigibles. So they can roll out the interminable playoff schedule. Before winnowing down to the only four teams that ever had a chance to win a championship. If you're not a fan of L.A., Miami, Chicago or Oklahoma City, might I suggest a good book?
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Right on schedule, the BCS doomsdayers are bellyaching about the calamity of shoehorning four undefeateds into a two-team championship format. Right on schedule they are ignoring all of history, which suggests that at least two of those teams will accommodate the BCS by succumbing along the way. But who needs facts when there's 24 hours-a-day of sports talk to fill?

(Addendum to this: The Notre Dame football program should be very proud of its accomplishments so far this season, but if it's one of the nation's top 10 teams, Snooki is our next president. Worried about whether Irish will be "shut out" of the title game? Don't forget to fret about the mighty undefeated Mountain Hawks of Lehigh.

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Oh yeah, it's a baseball blog. 

General managers seeking an opportunity to dispose of the GDP of Guinea Bissau for a Solyndra-type return need look no farther than Josh Hamilton and Kyle Lohse.

Hamilton is reportedly seeking seven years at $175 million. That's Lexus money for Lexus talent. Ah so, but Hamilton is a 31-year-old Lexus that breaks down like a Vega. Anyone who inks him to more than one presidential term will experience expensive buyer's remorse.

Since entering the majors in 2001, Kyle Lohse has solidified his fourth starter status with lines like 9-13, 5.34, 6-12, 4.58 and 14-11, 4.61, worth 11 wins above replacement over 11 seasons. With a .500 record on good teams, an ERA five percent higher than average and a WHIP of nearly one-and-a-half, Lohse has established his bona fides and they're more fide than bona. (Bona = good. Or the lead singer of a rock band. Fide = your dog. Unless he's Spot.)

To any GM dazzled by his anomalous age-34 season (16-3, 2.86): Call me. I have oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. Lohse is, as popular parlance now prefers, what he is, not what he ain't, which is what he was this year. Fatten his bank account at your own considerable risk.