New Year's Resolutions for MLB

Every January 1, I resolve not to make any New Year's Resolutions. Having broken my resolution on contact, I then have 364 days to address the important issues of life, like where my wife put the remote.

But baseball, baseball needs some New Year's resolutions, resolutions it's going to keep. And not just resolutions for the commissioner of MLB and the 30 teams. We need some resolutions for all of us -- fans, reporters, broadcasters, players, coaches, etc.

So here follow my resolutions that other people should keep:

1. Speed up the damn game!
Ever hear this at the water cooler? "Wow, did you see that pitching change last night? Johnson really yanked that starter. You should have seen them gab until the ump came over to move things along. And the way he tapped his left arm -- it had the reliever sprinting out of the pen." We need rules to limit pitching changes, throws to first and time between pitches, so that nine-inning games don't outlast Middle East ceasefires. And if that means Ford has fewer opportunities to sell me a truck, so be it. I think Carlos Zambrano can live if his team can no longer afford to waste $18 million on his 5.81 ERA.

2. Condense the season.
Baseball is a summer game. It can also be played in mild spring and fall weather. Baseball in Cleveland during March, or in Milwaukee on a November night, is like ice hockey in Bahrain. Inasmuch as we're wed to 162 games, the leagues should resolve to shorten the playoffs and play occasional doubleheaders. There should not be any games before April 1 or after October 15.

3. Aim for warm weather.

There are teams in Tampa, Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, L.A., San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland and Atlanta. The lords of baseball should resolve to find a way to schedule most games in those cities the first and last two weeks of the season.

4. Further flatten the labor market.

It's better than it used to be, but the gap in revenue potential between the mega-markets and the medium markets means that MSA-challenged teams are building sand castles as the tide comes in. Operating with razor-thin margins of error, they are competing for short bursts of contention, as the Brewers are demonstrating now. Baseball's powers should resolve to find more ways to share their income and the players should resolve to be more flexible about salary minimums and maximums if they want opportunities to contend regardless of where their teams call home.

5. Add new analysis to the coverage of the game.

ESPN, FOX, Turner and the local outlets should resolve to treat their viewers and listeners to the best information available. If Alexi Ogando is 7-0, 2.10, Tim McCarver should be expected to mention that Ogando's BABIP is unsustainable, that his strand rate suggests an unusual streak of luck and that the workload is uncharted territory for his career. If an amateur blogger in Charleston, SC has the ability to enlighten his readers of this, the big networks should be embarrassed not to.

6. Admit uncertainty in development of statistics.

Some of the reticence of mainstream sports media towards new analysis is the arrogance with which it's proposed. Even with the most sophisticated sabermetrics, no question in baseball analysis has been answered with total certainty. Seamheads should resolve to show some humility and avoid definitive statements like: there's no such thing as clutch hitting, batting average doesn't matter, pitching wins don't matter. (Okay, that last one is pretty close to definitive. But not entirely.)

7. Demand better analysis.

Here's a great barometer of the state of baseball analysis in the media: 

John Kruk employed by major TV network = no standards whatsoever.

John Kruk employed by regional TV network = standards are low.

John Kruk employed by local TV network = standards are inconsistent. 

John Kruk employed by local radio network = standards are moderate.

John Kruk on local cable public access channel = standards are satisfactory.

John Kruk tending bar back in West Virginia = baseball analysis nirvana.

We should all resolve to demand honest analysis from the so-called experts, whether they are former athletes or reporters. We should not accept ex post facto explanations conjured from the ether. We should not accept unsupportable declarations and should demand proof when assertions are made without factual support. We should demand that everyone supposedly enlightening us about our favorite sport understand OPS, park factors, BABIP, defense-independent pitching stats (at least in concept, if not in practice) and the need for context in all analysis. Operating without that knowledge is like operating on a human body without knowing the spleen from the appendix.

If all those resolutions are kept, understanding of America's pastime will skyrocket. There's probably also no Braindrizzling. See, an unintended benefit!

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Runs, Hits Errors, Part Deux

Sitting up and sitting down are the same thing. Skating on thin ice can get you into hot water. Crowing is the opposite of eating crow. Go figure. Time again to put the blog in reverse and examine which 2011 posts were worthy of four and twenty blackbirds and which inspire a meal of humble pie.

Let's start right in the basement with my suggestion that Ryan Howard would bounce back -- barring injuries -- closer to his career standard of .280/.372/.573 with 46 home runs than to his injury-addled 2010 performance of .277/.353/.505 with 31 gone. Doink! Howard barred the injuries, but continued the slide to .253/.346/.488 with 33 homers. Much of the decline is attributable to his burgeoning struggles against southpaws -- a .634 OPS in 2011.

Howard's physical stature and lack of secondary skills has always suggested his decline would resemble voting in Chicago  -- early and often. Without the parachute of speed, baserunning, defense or positional flexibility, Howard won't be the first immobile slugger to crash land after 30. 

Peering down the division, this post on the Mets recommended that they flip Jose Reyes for some tasty young treats that could help in future years. Before the peanut gallery launches into huzzahs, the reason was not so much that Miami would whisk Reyes away in free agency, but that Reyes was unlikely to continue to deliver high value by the time the Mets were ready to contend. That's probably still true, but I sure didn't see a batting title and 16 triples coming.

Check out this Nostradamus imitation: 

Memo to Carolina Panthers: run like Mike Vick from Cam Newton. Avoid Newton, Mass. Don't eat any Fig Newtons.

Let's consider the track record for run-first quarterbacks with low Wunderlick scores from simplified college offenses: Vick, Vince Young, Jamarcus Russel, Cam Newton. Okay, Newton's a better passer than the rest of them. He's also the only one who grew up in the shadow of a sleazebag preacher.

Run like a leaky faucet, Panthers. There are plenty of other areas in which you suck that could use a top draft pick.

Fun! For added emphasis, I noted in the same post that the NBA playoffs were all about determining which team would play the Lakers in the finals. It's prognostications like those that make this a great baseball blog.

Time for a win. Documenting the best pitcher you've never heard of is an oxymoronic exercise. You've heard of Mike Adams now. His prowess is now a matter of more renown after a summer as a hot trade deadline commodity and a fall as a World Series participant with Texas. In Arlington, his ERA ballooned to 2.10 in 25 innings of work and his strikeout rate dipped just below one per inning. That constitutes failure only in contrast to the 1.13, 1.76 and 0.73 ERAs he posted in his two-and-a-half previous seasons in San Diego.

If pronouncing Jose Bautista the real thing counts for anything, the Braindrizzling cap gets a new feather. By May, Bautista had demonstrated that 2010 was no fluke. Starting in July, though, he coasted and cost himself an MVP award. Throw in another feather if there's any credit to be earned for shoveling dirt on the title hopes of San Diego and Minnesota after 50 games. Both teams ended the seasons in the basement and their prospects for 2012 are similarly dismal.

As are the great Ichiro Suzuki's, whose skills retired to Japan without him last year. A mid-season review of Ichiro's decline noted that his offensive value was always about his ability to beat out singles. That singular skill gone, along with prodigious defensive prowess, all Ichiro had left was 40 of 47 steals and a $17 million swan song in '12. His final 2011 line: .272/.310/.335 and less than a win of offensive value above replacement. In 2012, cover your eyes.

By mid-June, Rangers rookie hurler Alexi Ogando was 7-0, 2.10. Closing the first half of the season with a three-run double, this space encouraged all fantasy owners to "sell him now" because his final ERA would hit 3.50 and Rangers brass would limit his innings. Bingo! Ogando went 6-8 the rest of the way and pitched just 64 frames in the second half. And his final ERA:3.51. I stand corrected.

The larger point about Ogando is that no one could have predicted that kind of regression so precisely 20 years ago. Knowing the impact of BABIP, strand rates and workload jumps made that observation possible. The science of player analysis has advanced radically in two decades, and those who ignore it -- or worse yet, denigrate it -- do so at their own peril. Ogando's second-half travails were not only unsurprising, they were easily predictable given some pretty easily accessed information.

So that's the first half of the 2011 season redux. Two more of these to come. Don't say you weren't warned.
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Can Acting Like A Cock Increase Your Value?

The following is a baseball story:

The South Carolina Gamecocks lead the Nebraska Cornhuskers 16-13 late in the third quarter of the Credit Card Company Bowl in Orlando when a hockey game breaks out between South Carolina's standout wide receiver, Alshon Jeffrey, and a Nebraska Corn(husk)erback of significantly less note. The pair gets ejected, much to the Gamecocks' detriment.

Before being yanked, Jeffrey supplies the signature play of the game, leaping over a crowd to snare a desperation heave and then diving into the end zone as the half ends.

Following Jeffrey's outburst, the Gamecocks promptly march down the field and register a touchdown to take a 23-13 lead. Their defense clamps down the rest of the way, sacking the Husker QB six times and leading the 'Cocks to a 30-13 victory.

During the post-game celebration, Jeffrey is allowed back onto the field to -- what?!!!! -- claim his most valuable player trophy! This obscenity draws the immediate ire of all at my sports bar table but one. He argues that, because Jeffrey accounted for 148 yards and the go-ahead score, he's a perfectly legitimate candidate.

Let's set aside the salient issue -- that no one committing such an offense should be eligible for an award in the first place. Instead, I engaged my friend in the following discussion:

Waldo: Once Jeffrey left the game, South Carolina scored twice and held Nebraska scoreless without any contribution from him. How is he then valuable?

Friend: They were ahead when he left. He put them there.

Waldo: If instead, the South Carolina drive had stalled, Nebraska scratched out a touchdown and the game had ended 20-16 Nebraska, would Jeffrey be the MVP?

Friend: Of course not, but that's not what happened.

Waldo: So according to you, Alshon Jeffrey is the MVP because for 20 minutes while he wasn't allowed on the field, his teammates dominated the game. Had they struggled without him, he would not be the MVP.

Others at the table: Hahahahaha.

This, of course, is exactly the logic employed by nearly every MVP voter in baseball. According to most baseball writers with votes, Ryan Braun was the NL MVP because he had better teammates than Matt Kemp, whose performance clearly, though marginally, surpassed Braun's. It's also a long-running theme in MVP votes, often expressed this way: they could have finished fourth without him.

At the risk of disinterring a long-deceased horse, a player contributes, by dint of his play on the field, a certain number of wins to his team. Whether those are wins 63-68, 85-90 or 103-108 is a function of others, not him, and therefore immaterial to the determination of his value.

The parallel between Braun's MVP and Jeffrey's is even more poignant given reports of Braun's failed drug tests. Evidently, being a knucklehead does not diminish a player's value, regardless of his sport.
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Runs, Hits and Errors: Chapter One

Facts, absolute in the abstract, are often twisted like pretzels when they refuse to conform to preconceptions. How else to explain the invasion of Iraq or the Occupy movement?

After a year of reporting the facts -- as I see them -- it's time to turn towards Cooperstown and reflect upon a year of blogging. The philosophy here is to swing hard in case you make contact, which provides for some entertaining whiffs.

Let's fire up the Wayback Machine and reprise the first three months of 2011:

Grand slams deserve a tip of the cap, but the colossal stupidity of Anaheim's Mike Napoli-Vernon Wells  trade was a hanging curve that Ron Kovic could have doubled off. Still, a win's a win, so forgive me for mentioning once again how I called this one back in January. (Synopsis: the Angels sent Toronto a better player in exchange for Vernon Wells and the worst contract in Major League history, a deal so bad it literally cost Anaheim the division.) Okay, okay, so did every other multi-celled organism not named Arte Moreno.

On the other hand, I might have been alone hitting into this ninth-inning double-play with the bases loaded. In his previous 13-year career, Adrian Beltre had rolled out the cannons on two conspicuous occasions -- both in contract years. A prescription for one- or two-year contract, right? When the Rangers dropped 96 large on Beltre for six seasons, I dropped 96 large bric-a-brats on the deal and predicted performance regression in the area of Bank of America stock. I'm not sure .296 batting with 33 homers and Gold Glove defense is quite what I had in mind. The Beltre signing may yet come back to haunt the Rangers, but not the way I suggested.

I was just the messenger, a suspicious one at that, but it's nonetheless instructive to review the sabermetric projections for Royals second-year first-baseman Kila Ka’aihue. The Baseball Prospectus abacus pegged the otherwise nondescript Hawaiian at .262/.387/.473 with 25 homers and as much value as Ryan Howard in 2011. Well, Howard's decline continued, but still left him four wins clear of Ka'aihue, who played just 23 games and batted .195. Thhhhppppp!

I used up valuable Internet space to document the utter futility of Brandon Wood with a bat in his hand and wondered why the Angels would allow him to keep a roster spot. Well, they didn't for long, shipping the lumber-impaired infielder to the waiver wire, and thence to Pittsburgh, where, unburdened by the need to deliver, he didn't. But he was less worse than usual. In the most plate appearances of his career, Wood slugged .216/.270/.340, a 228-point upswing in his OPS and a mere half win below replacement level. Wood has the valuable ability to not hit at three infield positions, but he's arbitration-eligible this year. I see a minor league jersey in his immediate future.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never forget this post from March in which I touted a fascinating new pitcher measuring tool called SIERA. If you bought any shares, you went bust, because the stat monkeys who gave SIERA life took it away, arguing that no matter how they tweaked it, its projections failed to outperform existing tools.

In a nutshell, SIERA proposed to replace a pitcher's actual ERA with the ERA he had earned based on the way he pitched, stripping out defense, park factors, luck and other elements out of his control. Other metrics claim to do the same -- FIP (fielding-independent pitching), FRA (fair run average) and their ilk -- so SIERA was retired during its rookie year. Frankly, they all add marginal value and not much more at this early stage of their development.

This, of course, is not a failure but a spectacular success, as I mentioned in a subsequent post. Creative destruction is not just a free market phenomenon; it marks the world of scientific research. Rather than hang on defensively to an outdated or counter-productive theory, SIERA's inventors admitted noble defeat and consolidated their lessons learned.

SIERA did leave us a legacy, as noted in the blog post under discussion. SIERA suggested that four luck-challenged pitchers from 2010 would rebound in 2011 -- Aaron Harang, Dan Haren, Brandon Morrow and Josh Beckett. You can see for yourself how Harang, Haren and Beckett fulfilled their prescribed destiny, but Morrow hiccupped. Morrow remains a fascinating case in that he pitched more innings in 2011 with more quality starts and an even better WHIP and K/BB ratio, yet his ERA continued to rise. Something is going on there (too many home runs, for one) that is eluding SIERA (and FIP and FRA, for that matter) and may suggest a common hole in all these accounting systems.

Another March post from the mountaintop espied the dreck clogging the backstop position in NY and Boston after a decade of excellence and noted how the mighty had fallen. It was true that neither Jason Varitek nor Jorge Posada donned the gear much last year (indeed, Posada did just once), pressing Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Russell Martin into service. Each delivered about what you might expect: Salty, .235/.288/.450 for the Sox  and Martin a Jekyll-and-Hyde .237/.324/.408 in which he lit up April and August and fizzled the rest of the season.

With the expiration of Posada's four-year, $52 million contract, an inability to catch and an almost complete lack of value as a DH, it would seem 2011 was his unfortunate swan song. Any re-signing by the Yankees would be an act of charity; it's inconceivable that anyone else would offer him a uniform. A Hall of Excellence receiver for championship teams, Posada would make a great coach and goodwill ambassador in the Yankee system.

Speaking of which, it said right here that Derek Jeter might bounce back at the plate in 2011 and flirt with .300 even as his fielding continued to deteriorate. Naysayer that you are, you snickered at his slow start, hooted for his retirement, and panned his All Star no-show. How many teams would like a shortstop whose stick is good for .297/.355/.389, including .327/.383/.428 in the second half? Snicker now, while I take my victory lap. The post also advised that you write off the Yankees and their pitching woes at your peril. They won 97 games, smart guy.

Those are the runs, hits and errors of the first three months of 2011. Next installment we'll examine last spring's blog posts while we contemplate the spring that awaits us, devoid just yet of those pesky . . . facts.
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The Future Is Never

In the spirit of declaring their intentions for 2012 and beyond, the Oakland A's have once again cast their lot with the future. The A's are the team of the future and have been for a decade, I'm afraid.

Billy Beane's franchise is hamstrung, playing in an anachronistic multi-use stadium in a demographically-challenged city on the wrong side of the Bay. Perpetually cash-strapped, Oakland brass have made a habit of shipping out their studs as they approach market cost for the next strata of studs from other teams' minor league systems.

The problem with this approach is that it means the A's are constantly sacrificing the present for the future. As soon as the future arrives it becomes the present and the team strips down again. Lather, rinse, repeat . . . and never get out of the shower.

All this follows a pair of trades that cost Oakland accomplished young starters Trevor Cahill (30-22, 3.57 in 404 innings over the last two years) and Gio Gonzalez (31-21, 3.18 in 403 innings over the last two years) for a gaggle of prized farmhands.

Beane was once master of this universe, before a great shift in the stat-scout continuum altered conditions. For one thing, The Athletics had better players to trade and a better team remaining then. The likes of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder et. al. yielded proven Major Leaguers like Dan Haren, Rich Harden, etc. And those new players inherited a playoff squad that boasted talents like Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada.

Maybe more impactful was the loss of Beane's sabermetric edge. Where once he could lord over his GM counterparts with superior understanding of the value of OBP, the fungibility of closers, the effect of BABIP on performance, and so on, that information is now standard issue in every front office in baseball. The gaping chasm in insight that Beane once enjoyed no longer exists. Even marginal advantages are difficult to come by, fleeting in nature and a mere pittance in impact compared to Oakland's serious lack of revenue.

The A's have been posturing for a new ballpark -- most likely a Cisco Systems-sponsored field in downtown San Jose -- since the Clinton Administration. Beane may be banking on that finally coming to fruition by 2015, with its attendant boost in attendance and revenues, possibly coinciding with the emergence of a stable of top prospects. It's all conjecture at this point, but  A's management likely knows something we don't.

One of Oakland's trading partners, the Washington Nationals, have loudly declared their commitment to the present. The acquisition of Gonzalez gives the Nats an intriguing big three in the rotation of Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman and Gonzalez. Backing them is a lineup with some assets, if not a coherent whole. Breakout first baseman Mike Morse, free agent outfielder Jayson Werth, homegrown star Ryan Zimmerman and a couple of solid middle infielders in Danny Espinosa and Ian Desmond suggest the former-Expos are just a couple of key parts away from contention.

In some ways, the Nats offer the widest spread in possible outcomes in 2012. Strasburg is coming off a missed year and could be anything from still-rehabbing to again-dominating. Morse enters his age-30 season with just one full year -- last -- under his belt. Werth hopes to rebound from a .232/.330/.389 flop after signing a superstar contract. Hope springs eternal on a team whose best players boast youthful exuberance, if not a long curriculum vitae of success.

Washington's biggest problem may be the competition in the NL East. The Phillies are measurably better than the Nats going into the season, the Braves remain a daunting challenge and Miami has forefully demonstrated the same now-focused intentions as the Nats. With a second slot for also-rans in 2012, it may be the time to make that bold move.

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Inhabiting the Right Orbit

In Days of Yore, back when the Goliaths of the Game ruled the land and the players were mere pawns, teams rosters endured (or enjoyed, depending on your perspective) a certain stasis. Unless one franchise could bamboozle another out of an under-valued player by trade, the only route from the bottom of the pile to the top was to develop young talent.

These days, free agency has wreaked havoc, not only by exposing talent to a bidding war in which any franchise may participate, but also by distorting the salary structure so that teams have the right to control players and pay them vastly beneath their market value until their seventh year of service, when the cost of that labor, and the number of suitors for it, may spike.

One unintended consequence of this is that teams now act like electrons, inhabiting one of several states, including the states of contention, dilapidation, rebuilding, reloading and austerity. By their off-season actions, we can deduce the state each franchise believes it has entered.

A great case in point is the Brewers, who last year demonstrated clearly that they were damning the torpedoes and steaming ahead full speed with contention in the short term. They traded big parts of their minor league system for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum in the hopes of dominating the NL Central for the year Prince Fielder was on board and maybe for a couple more years hence. The strategy has worked so far, with the Brews winning 96 games and the division in 2011, their first playoff appearance since 1982.

Two teams involved in a trade yesterday announced what orbit they plan to occupy in 2012, and if you're a fan of either you probably want to rub your hands together in glee. Recognizing that Milwaukee and St. Louis will be stung by the defection of their slugging first-baggers and that Chicago and Houston are too far down the food chain to take advantage, the Cincinnati Reds flipped a handful of spare parts for Padre starter Mat Latos. (Most of those traded were being blocked in the Reds lineup.) Teaming with Johnny Cueto, Bronson Arroyo and Mike Leake, this could give the Redlegs a competitive rotation to complement a potent lineup, led by Joey Votto, that finished second in the NL last season in runs scored.

Latos's curriculum vitae includes three years of a 3.37 ERA with half the starts at Petco Park, the stadium that defense built. Even on the road, Latos sported a spiffy 3.57 mark and to boot he's just 24 years old. Cincy may keep him for four more seasons, the first of them at a deep discount (before arbitration kicks in.)

On the other side of the equation, San Diego finally decided to inhabit the space already suggested by the team's record. They are rebuilding, or just plain building, because while their pitching and defense are spot-on, their offense has been offensive. San Diego's top slugger, backstop Nick Hundley, pounded nine home runs in half a season in 2011. The player who consumed the most plate appearances, shortstop Jason Bartlett, made Sandy Koufax look like Albert Pujols -- .245/.308/.307. The team's most valuable hitter, center fielder Cameron Maybin, posted a .264/.323/.399 slash line. It's worse than it looks due to Petco, but it's still nothing to write home about, even if home is an offensively-challenged locale like Seattle.

Latos was a fancy bauble to relinquish, but he's off the roster a year before his cost becomes too rich for Padre blood. In return, the Friars received minor leaguers at first base, catcher and relief, each a former first-round pick, along with Edinson Volquez, who delivered 17-6 3.21 in 196 frames in '08 before Tommy John surgery and a steroid suspension ripped up 2009-2011. When he did take the mound last year, he pitched below replacement level, so this is a leap of faith for S.D.

That's what rebuilding is all about, though, trading the present for a shot at the future. This could easily turn into a win-win deal if Latos helps lead Cincinnati to a division title and any one of the four prospects pays off down the road for San Diego.

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Mr. Juggs Gun, Shake Hands With Mr. Eye Shade

The False Dichotomy is one of the classic errors of logic. It bares its fangs relentlessly in politics, domestic life and sports. "Do you support our troops or are you opposed to the war?" is the Mac Daddy of all False Dichotomies because not only is the dichotomy false, the premise is also. But that's another discussion.

The quintessential False Dichotomy in baseball is this: Stats or scouts? Below is an example of how badly that dichotomy is begging to be put out of its misery.

Man on first, none out, bottom of the seventh inning of a tie game. Should you bunt? The answer, transparently, is that it depends. New baseball research tells us that, on average, trading an out for a base is a bad swap. Over the history of baseball, you can expect to score 28% fewer runs from a man-on-second, one-out scenario than from a man-on-first, no out situation.

That suggests that, generally, many teams bunt way too often. Recently, some franchises have recognized this and altered their strategic approach. The saber-savvy A's and Red Sox both bunt pretty rarely.

But few situations are average. If your pitcher is up, a bunt is probably a good idea. If a .300 OBP batter is at the plate and a .400 OBP guy waits on deck, a bunt might also make sense. If the two opposing hurlers are aces shutting down the offenses, you might be playing for one run. New research shows that on average, there's virtually no difference in the frequency of scoring a single run between the man-on-second, one-out versus man-on-first, no out circumstances. In that case, a seamhead would shrug his shoulders, but a manager could tip the balance one way or the other with his soft skills.

Imagine that the manager knows his on-deck hitter, a .400 OBP guy, is ailing. Or struggles against side-arming lefties, like the fellow now on the mound. Or is going through a rough patch at home that's distracting him. The skipper might decide in that case to swing away with the .300 OBP guy in that case, odds be damned.

Managers and their staffs bring massive amounts of useful information to every game, or at least we hope they do. Simply playing the odds would eliminate the manager's value-add. That's as backward as ignoring the statistical research. The two have to be synthesized for the best decision-making. Smart franchises use numerical analysis to create frameworks of decision-making, but leave specific situational decisions to the men in uniform.

Besides, if a team always plays the odds, it's totally predictable. Sometimes, a card player has to bluff just to keep his opponents off-balance. A good field staff understands that they are managing their players for the best results over 162 games, which isn't always the same as managing for the best results in any single game. Harkening to the discussion above, the manager might want to provide his players some practice bunting in real-game situations so that they're more proficient by September, even if doing so slightly reduces his odds of winning any one game in May.

The point is that scouting and stats aren't opposite sides of a coin; they're complimentary heuristic tools. Sometimes they point in different directions, but an unbiased user can weight the information they provide appropriately and come to a well-supported conclusion.

One last thing about decision-making: one outcome does not vindicate or repudiate a decision. Sometimes the bonehead decision turns out well, or the smart move backfires. Even when the odds favor our choice, there is a non-zero chance that an ill wind will blow. The reverse is true too as evinced by the blind squirrel and the broken clock. 

As the saying goes, the battle doesn't always go to the strong, nor the race to the swift. But that's the way to bet."

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"All I Know Is, He Wins"

18-10-38-17-17-16-35-13.

That's the point total for the Denver Broncos since Tim Tebow took the reins at quarterback.

If you're keeping score, that's two good games and six bad ones.

Tebow unquestionably possesses leadership qualities. He has poise and bonhomie and courage and self-confidence. He is tenacious and persistent. He has comes alive with the game on the line. Otherwise, not so much.

"All I know is, he wins." That's a common refrain in sports. It's the dumbest one too. Tim Tebow is the most important player on the Broncos, but not the only one. He doesn't kick field goals or punt or return kicks. He doesn't play defense or run block or catch passes. He is a running back, which certainly adds to his value. But Tebow alone doesn't win games.

In fact, the stout Bronco defense has. Here are the opponent scores for Tebow's games:

15-45-24-10-13-13-32-10

That's five wins and one loss entirely attributable to the defense.

You might recall that Vince Young led Tennessee to low-scoring wins his first two seasons. The football cognoscenti were dazzled by the "W's" and failed to notice Young's mediocre performances, including 21 TD and 30 INT. The bloom eventually came off the rose and Young is now a poorly-regarded backup.

Tebow may yet have a successful career as a QB. Let's just wait for him to string together a couple of good games before we anoint him the great paradigm shifter. And let's get beyond that utterly fatuous argument about individuals "winning" in team sports.

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Breathing A Sigh In St. Louis

Remember that year the St. Louis Cardinals stunk up the joint? Yeah, me either. The last time the team won fewer games than it lost was 12 years ago. The last time St. Louis fans endured consecutive (full) losing seasons -- 1958-59. The last time the Cards lost 100 games -- 1908, the year of the Cubs' last World Series. The Cardinals' Missouri neighbors, the Kansas City Royals, have lost 100 games four times -- in the last 10 seasons.

So when team owner Bill Dewitt Jr. begs forgiveness as the best player in a generation slips through his hands, we should be inclined to oblige. Dewitt claims the team's offer came up $30 million short, at 10 years and roughly $225 million.

In the aftermath, Dewitt and GM John Mozeliak may be breathing an arch-sized sigh of relief. A quarter of a billion dollars may be considered an "investment" to a team in Southern California, but it could sink the Redbird ship even if it pays off. Because Pujols was already a Cardinal, and because fans already pack Busch Stadium, it wasn't as if the franchise could spin his arrival into enough gold to cover part of the deal's cost. The Cards are already maximizing revenues, thanks to their politely rabid Midwest fans.

With Matt Holliday signed through '16 at $17 mil per, the middle and back ends of a 10-year Pujols contract could have gummed up team finances even if Albert delivered as expected. No team can win a World Series on the backs of an outfielder and a first baseman; it needs sufficient disposable income to purchase a pitching staff and other offensive assets. It's not clear that the #18 market can support a consistently $100+ million payroll.

Dewitt and Mozeliak had to make a creditable play for their superstar if for no other reason than to placate the fans. The original nine-year, $198 million offer rejected by Pujols prior to the season's start might have seemed to them the last edge of prudence, so that going an extra year and $56 million further was beyond it. Given that the Pujols of the next 10 years is highly unlikely to be much more than a shadow of the player he's been in the previous 11, they probably made the right decision.

Folks in St. Louis are now wondering how the Cardinals will spread the unused $200 million in Albert's absence. They should not hold their breath. The windfall here is just the $14.5 million he'd been earning the last three years, for which even in his worst season he delivered five-six wins of value. Arbitration eligibility, payroll escalators and free agent defections that must be replaced are expected to boost the payroll by roughly $12 million even not withstanding Pujols. That's because the Cards have yet to fill their shortstop, back-up catcher and several relief pitcher positions as contracts run out on the incumbents.

St. Louis brass is going to look foremost to Allen Craig to fill the value gap as Lance Berkman slots in at first and he fills the vacancy in right. In parts of two seasons, Craig has delivered a respectable .290/.339/.503 at the plate with reasonable defense at a $450,000 salary. Projected out, that's about four wins of value over a full season, but "projected out" are two of the dumbest words in sports. It's fair to say that given what we've seen so far, Craig may reasonably be expected to replace a chunk of Pujols' value to the team, but by no means all.

The world isn't static, though, and the Cardinals slipped into the post-season by the barest of margins as a wild card, so they may need to improve in 2012. Fortunately for them, their main rival right now is about to lose their own slugging first baseman and two of the remaining teams in the division are in no position -- even if they were to sign Prince Fielder -- to contend. Adam Wainwright can be expected to provide a boost as he returns to the field after missing all last year to TJ surgery, but it's not unreasonable to expect that the loss of Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa might offset some of that.

My guess is that once they secure a shortstop, St. Louis will enter the 2012 season with a roster not every different from its current constitution. If contention smiles upon them, and the fans continue to fill the seats, they could acquire an asset at mid-season to further strengthen the club. By then, both Prince Albert, and his unspent salary, will be distant memories in St. Louis.

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The Ghost of Christmas Past

The thing is, past performance does not guarantee future returns. It would be nice when, investing a quarter of a billion dollars, one could expect some kind of certainty, but the only certainty with a 32-year-old (at least!) athlete who has a history of back and elbow injuries is uncertainty.

The Angels, of course, are paying for past results. In just 11 years, Albert Pujols produced more lifetime value for the Cardinals than all but four first basemen in history, according to Baseball Prospectus. (Lou Gerhig [17 seasons], Jimmie Foxx [20 seasons], Cap Anson [forever]). An "average" Pujols year in 2012 would put Albert at the top of the list.

Notice that? "Average" is retrospective, representing ages 21-31. Prince Albert won't be scooping throws for Anaheim during those years; they only get his ages 32-41 seasons. They have purchased an outline of a player in the hopes that it won't be the chalk variety.

We may look back on Pujols's 2011 bemused by the anomalous dip in his production. He had by far the worst season of his career at the plate, with the lowest batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, true average and VORP and the fewest hits, doubles, walks, total bases and RBIs of his career. (He's come to the plate fewer times twice in his career.)

Or we may peer down the slope that began its downward vector in 2010, much as we could see the sine curve of Ken Griffey Jr.'s career. In that case, the Angels are paying for some large fraction of the 90 WARP (wins against replacement player) of Albert's first half but receiving Kent Hrbek instead. That's an asset, for sure, but it's only one-third the payoff, which at $254 million, is a loss of $169 mil. That's a dickens of a return on the ghost of Christmas past.

Fortunately for Anaheim management, tools exist to measure the risk and color inside the lines a bit. They suggest -- assuming Pujols really is his stated age (hrrrumph) -- a partial bounce back in 2012 and then a slow, steady decline over the next few years. The last three or four chapters of the contract are likely to be more about stat-padding than contributions to the team, but it does matter to ownership if a 41-year-old Albert swats his 764th home run while in a Halo uniform. That might not help them directly to win a pennant, but if it puts buttocks in the seats, the extra cash might pay for a critical part that will.

That Mrs. Pujols and the Pujols progeny are promised $25 million in 2019, and then again in 2020 and even in 2021 nearly guarantees that dear ol' dad will still be lugging his lunch bucket to Angel Stadium even if he's barely more than a splinter collector. That, in turn, increases the likelihood that he'll be chasing some big-time records and co-habitating with the royalty of the sport, if not pushing them all down the charts one notch. 

In that sense, the signing might benefit baseball fans in general, especially those who don't cotton to steroid-tinged records, whether owned by Mr. Bonds or Mr. Rodriguez.
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Binge & Purge In Little Havana

Which team would you rather root for?

Team      Year 1     Year 2    Year 3   Year 4     Year 5     Total Wins

Team A:  85-77     85-77     85-77     85-77     85-77     425

Team B:  97-65     97-65     97-65     65-97     65-97     421

Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria understands that pennants fly forever, which is why he prefers option 2. That's the only way to explain his recent Christmas shopping binge for shortstop Jose Reyes, closer Heath Bell and starter Mark Buehrle at the low-low price of $191 million, and his offer to leverage all of South Beach for first baseman Albert Pujols.

Loria is trying to recreate the binge and purge Marlins of 1997 and 2003, who won the World Series with gargantuan payrolls that were promptly jettisoned. During that same period, the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros had consistently good teams at reasonable prices, but nothing to show for it.

On the face of it, these contracts are all too rich for too long. Miami will be paying Mark Buehrle ace money ($14.5 million/year) until he's 37. The six year, $106 million contract for Jose Reyes covers at least four DL stints. Giving any closer not named Mariano three years is folly, particularly one coming off a 34% dip in his strikeout rate.

What's really folly, though, is worrying about your team's record in five years when there's a World Series to be won the very next season. With Reyes scampering and Pujols, Mike Stanton & Hanley Ramirez swatting big flies, the Marlins will offer fans at their new downtown ballpark a wholesome helping of runs to back a rotation of Josh Johnson, Buehrle, Anibel Sanchez, Javier Vazquez and Ricky Nolasco, along with Bell in the pen.  

There are plenty of question marks in that starting staff; most notably, Johnson, the ace, missed most of 2011 with shoulder issues; Vazquez finished the season as Dr. Jekyll (8-3, 2.15) after a first half of Mr. Hyde-your-eyes (5-8, 5.23). But what team doesn't have mound concerns? The '11 Red Sox crammed six good starters onto their roster and couldn't find two live arms as their season slipped into oblivion.

So Loria and his staff are punting years four, five and six for three solid shots at late October games under New Marlins Ballpark's retractable roof. There will be hell to pay when the team is shelling out 32 extra large for a hobbled shortstop and a defunct 37-year-old lefty after that, but the last of it will  come off the books following the '17 season and then the good people of Miami can hold their breath while management dives in again.
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A Little Hot Stove One-Liner

I read that Manny wants back in. Unless there's a 40-foot pole lying around, I don't see anyone touching that without some serious smoke inhalation. 

A team wants to get its manager fired that badly can find a less painful way to do it. Like root canal without anesthesia.

Quick Note

Quick college football note: 

If (the semi-professional athletes representing the state university in) Alabama defeat(s) (the semi-professional athletes representing the state university of) LSU in a close championship game, the two teams would have split a pair, one at Alabama's home and one on a semi-neutral field. LSU would have played a tougher schedule, won one more game, and won more convincingly overall.

Wouldn't that make LSU the best team? Shouldn't they then be crowed the champion? Might not the AP, which is not obliged to accept the BCS verdict, select LSU as national champs?

The potential for a muddled decision  and endless argument is why most people hate the BCS. And why I love it.

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Hark, Ye Anaheim Angels Sing

In the epic movie, "It's A Wonderful Baseball Life," Clarence tells George Bailey that every time an American League team in Southern California signs a catcher who can hit, it means an Angel has just gotten his wings. 

That would be new general manager Jerry DiPoto, who quickly went about undoing the single stroke by former GM Tony Reagins (or engineered by manager Mike Scioscia, it's not clear) that cost Anaheim the West in 2011.

Last winter, Reagins/Scioscia jettisoned catcher Mike Napoli, who had bashed .260/.350/.500 with awful backstop defense in his first five years. Scioscia, a former catcher himself, couldn't abide the tradeoff. So they traded Napoli off to Toronto with Juan Rivera for the stinking carcass of Vernon Wells' five-year, $105 million contract, a swap universally reviled as among the worst in history. Many pundits agreed with the pronouncement of this space that any team willing to accept Wells' albatross of a contract should have been receiving players as a price of their largesse, not relinquishing a receiver, and one of the league's best-hitting ones at that.

The Jays then flipped Napoli to Anaheim's main rival, Texas, for reliever Frank Francisco, allowing Scioscia to enjoy the other side of the Napoli relationship. And here's how it went: like watching your ex-girlfriend hook up immediately with the former star quarterback who now owns all the local car dealerships.

Napoli got busy tearing up AL pitching (.320/.414/.631) and banking five wins of value to the pennant-fated Rangers. His replacements in Anaheim -- whoops! we're supposed to have replacements? -- managed a putrid .192/.252/.302, costing the Angels a couple of losses. In short, that trade flipped the Rangers and Angels in the standings. For icing on the cake, Wells clogged up an outfield spot with his .218/.248/.412 and at $26+ million probably prevented the team from acquiring a Major League catcher.

Evidently, DiPoto, who was hired after Reagins abruptly quit following the season, was paying attention. Job one: landing Chris Ianetta, the Rockies' offense-first catcher. Ianetta (.235/.357/.439) is no Napoli behind or beside the plate, so maybe Scioscia will stomach him better. In any case, he's 230 points of OPS better than the sludge that oozed behind the plate for Anaheim after Napoli's departure.

The upgrade cost DiPoto a fungible arm -- rookie long reliever Tyler Chatwood. All of which means things are looking up for Orange County during that time of year when Angels are purported most often to sing.

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Jim Boeheim: You're Not Done

This is more important than sports. It's more important than a coach or a player or a team. It's the most important post you'll read in this space.

The best man at my wedding has been my best friend since first grade. He is a kind and generous man, a loving husband and a doting father. He is loyal and hard-working and cares about other people. I have loved him my whole life.

And if a young adult came forward claiming my best friend had raped him as a boy, I could not unequivocally refute the charge. I could attest to my friend's character and note that the charge is totally inconsistent with the man I know. But I don't live inside his skin and observe his daily demons.

This evidently is news to Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim. Confronted with allegations of abuse against his top assistant, Boeheim vehemently denied the charges. As I mentioned to everyone around me at the time: his denial was ipso facto a lie. He could not possibly know their veracity.

Had that been all, we could forgive his outburst as the misdirected defense of a friend. But Boeheim committed a sin that undermined the cause of sexual abuse victims everywhere. He publicly called the alleged victims liars. The most critical factor in whether an abuse victim reports the crime is whether they think they will be believed. Jim Boeheim gave millions of past and future victims another reason to curl up and suffer instead.

Maddeningly, it gets worse. How did Boeheim know that the alleged victims were lying? Because there was no corroborating evidence. Good God: that is the hallmark of nearly every sexual assault. That assertion casts doubt on virtually every rape and molestation case there has ever been.

On the day of his remarks, I observed to friends that the Syracuse PR department had to be admonishing Boeheim to clamp his piehole immediately. All it would take is one more victim to come forward with a similar claim to illustrate how despicably Boeheim had acted.

And sure enough, nary a week passed before that very thing -- and then some -- transpired, forcing the school to fire the assistant coach. Boeheim, to his credit, admitted his mistake and apologized.

That was a good first step, but it isn't nearly sufficient. Jim Boeheim abused his considerable power to pour scorn on alleged sexual abuse victims. His words will make it harder to prosecute rapists and harder to convict them. His words cast a lengthening shadow over every abuse victim in Central NY and beyond.

Jim Boeheim must make a very public and quite considerable monetary contribution to an organization aiding rape victims and fighting against sexual abuse. During the public proceedings, he must elucidate exactly what he did wrong and state categorically how all reports of sexual abuse must be treated with respect and the assumption of truth.

Sexual abuse of children is an adult problem that can only be solved by adults. Jim Boeheim added to the problem and must now make amends. Anything less is immoral. If he refuses to do so, he should be summarily fired and universally reviled.

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Things To Be Thankful For

If your favorite sport is hockey or basketball, I shed a tear for you. Your top professional leagues are turkeys. Baseball fans have much for which to give thanks:

• God's blessing on 90 feet. Not one foot more or less.
• No clock to kill. A team can never win by quitting before the game ends.
• Ever fresh enlightenment. Thank you Bill James, Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, Keith Law, Jay Jaffe, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Analysts, Baseball Think Factory, Baseball Reference and many others. Maybe most of all, the sweet swing of Joe Poz.
• Green waves of grass, dirt diamonds with a bump in the middle like a screw top, stirrup socks, giant scoreboards with real time scores, cityscapes beyond the outfield walls.
• The Designated Hitter. Anything that prevents pitching changes is a good thing.
• St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, NY Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox, (St. Louis Cardinals) Chicago White Sox, (Boston Red Sox), Florida Marlins, Anaheim Angels, Arizona Diamondbacks. Nine teams have won the last 11 World Series. 
• Albert Pujols, this generation's Stan Musial. 
• The Hot Stove League. It keeps us warm through the long, cold winter.
• The Green Monster; the Monuments; Eutaw Street, Boog's BBQ and the warehouse; the rightfield pool; ivy; retractable roofs; and other distinct elements that make each stadium unique.
• A three-two count with the bases loaded and two outs in a one-run game.
• The people who bring the games to life for us. Especially Vin Scully, John Sciambi, Jon Miller, Dave Campbell, Bob Uecker, Gary Cohen, Charlie Steiner, Sean McDonough. 
• The sounds: of bat on ball, of ball in mitt. "Whomp!"  Of vendors. "Hat dawg!" Of the crowd.
• We're never more than 150 days from big league games.
• Best of all: sitting in the ballpark, watching the game, with my dad.

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Woe Unto He Who Signs the Best Free-Agent Pitcher

The Yankees have wisely locked up CC Sabathia through 2018 for the GDP of Cote D'ivoire, but woe unto the franchise that wins the C.J. Wilson sweepstakes.

It's a thin market for quality starters this winter, leaving the Rangers' worm-killing ground ball specialist as the prize mound offering. The market appears poised to present the 31-year-old lefty with something like a six-year contract worth in the vicinity of $90 million. This could work out well. The roulette ball could land on 17. Neither is the way to bet.

First, let's review recent large, long-term contracts: CC Sabathia ($161 million), Johan Santana ($137.5 million), Barry Zito ($126 million), Mike Hampton ($121 million), Cliff Lee ($120 million), Kevin Brown ($105 million), Carlos Zambrano ($91.5 million), Mike Mussina ($88.5 million), John Lackey and A.J. Burnett ($82.5 million). Smell anything there?

That's 10 mega-contracts with two successes (Mussina and Sabathia's first contract with NY) and one that remains to be seen (Lee). All but one of the remaining deals face-planted like a drunken klutz. (That Santana has returned just 14.4 wins against replacement over the first four years of his Mets tenure at the cost of $78 million is due entirely to missing 45 starts over the last three years. He's owed at least $55.5 million over the next two years, which will really determine the efficacy of his signing.)

With the exception of Burnett, all the pitchers above had long track records of ace-level performance. Their new teams celebrated their contract negotiating "victory." D'Oh!

C.J. Wilson does not have a long track record of success; indeed, he has just two years as a starter on his resume. He has impressively delivered nearly 10 wins against replacement in those two seasons while toiling 200+ innings. His ERAs of 3.35 and 2.94 are all the more impressive coming in a hitter's park. On the other hand, he delivered up-and-down performances as a reliever in the five seasons prior.

Wilson is also older than most of the pitchers named above. A six-year deal brings him to age 36. Wilson's age worries me less -- what with just 708 career innings -- than the increased uncertainty attendant to each added year of a contract. A $90 million outlay requires 20 wins above replacement to pay off. That's three MVP-level seasons, four or five All Star-level seasons or six very good seasons of work, a taller order than Wilson is likely to measure up to.

There's one more pretty serious demerit on Wilson's balance sheet: the Rangers don't appear particularly eager to sign him to a market deal. Research shows that teams fare better when they re-sign incumbent free agents, presumably because they know more about the labor being offered. That the Rangers are skeptical should signal to other clubs that a similar attitude is in order.

Nolan Ryan and Braindrizzling seem to agree: caveat emptor on C.J. Wilson.

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Taking A Page From MLB

Dear Congress,

You probably haven't paid too much attention to Major League Baseball recently. Denied the opportunity to grandstand on steroid use (oh, the children!), you've been busy with other things, like failing to fix Social Security. And failing to fix Medicaid. And Medicare. And the budget deficit and the debt and every other problem before you.

You might want to check in with the National Pastime again. See, the Republicans and Democrats of baseball -- owners and players -- have been experimenting with a novel formula. They've been cooperating. I mean with each other. They've decided that the good of the game is more important than which side wins in a false dichotomy showdown.

This year, without a speck of fanfare, the two side inked a five-year deal that will keep the industry humming like a beehive. Players agreed to be HGH-tested and to play in the All-Star game unless truly injured. The owners agreed to improve safety measures and to further level the playing field among teams. They -- choke -- compromised.

As a constituent of the game, I didn't get everything I want. The HGH testing won't occur during the season. The revenue sharing is still sub-optimal. The extra playoffs violate my religion. But on balance, it's an agreement everyone can live with. No animals were harmed in the creation of this compact. (Well, actually, the gloves are leather...)

There may be crackpots on both sides bellyaching about the deal. Fringe nutcases on the owners side who want to hold out for a salary cap. Left-wing loonies in uniform who believe their bodily fluids are inviolable. But those people have been sufficiently sidelined to achieve five more years of peace and prosperity.

Which brings us back to you, Congress. You've been acting like the NBA, what with the ideologues on both sides ruling the day. See where that's gotten us? Your "super" committee has delivered the equivalent of a lockout and cancellation of all games. 

Maybe you'd like to tinker with the baseball formula. Maybe you'd like to mix together some of the good ideas on one side (pay our bills!) with some of the good ideas on the other (stay out of unnecessary wars!) and find some accommodation that we can all live with.

Well, maybe we can't all live with it. The fringe nutcases and the left-wing loonies will have to be sacrificed, like Manny was. The Tea Party Being the Tea Party. Occupy Sanity. For the non-Mannys among us, five years of peace and prosperity would be a good thing. C'mon Congress, take a page from Commissioner Bud and Executive Director Michael Weiner. 

Less NBA; more MLB!

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Why I Love the BCS

I'm the guy. The one guy in America who loves the BCS. The one guy who thinks it's fair and that it works and that it's better than whatever system you're proposing.

And the evidence is all around you. 

Right now, LSU is undefeated. One of its vanquished, Alabama, sits in second place, awaiting an LSU stumble. The Tigers have yet to defeat #3 Arkansas and #13 Georgia to remain in the title hunt. (This is irrational, of course. The voters have no understanding of the concept of a game-and-a-half lead. LSU should be free to lose one of its games and remain #1, since it would have the same number of losses as its closest competitors, but against a more impressive schedule. But that's a fight for another day.)

In other words, despite slaying every foe that's challenged them, including two top 10 opponents, the Tigers are still in must-win mode. Why? Because the BCS is just a two-team playoff.

Suppose we had an eight-team playoff instead -- as many BCS-haters demand. Where would the intrigue be now? LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, Oregon, Stanford and Boise State would have locked up spots in the playoff. The LSU-Arkansas tussle (and the LSU-Alabama showdown before it) would be irrelevant. Virginia Tech and Oklahoma State wins this weekend would pretty much cement the field. You could attempt to make a desultory case for undefeated Houston (signature win: a four-point home decision over UCLA) ahead of Oregon, but that's at least a four-beer argument. ZZZzzzzz.

The uncertainty and excitement fomented by a two-team playoff based on the whims of voters is vastly more fun. And it trickles down. I can tell you firsthand that the prospect of the home state Clemson Tigers being one ACC win from the Orange Bowl is mouth-watering here in South Cackalacky. (Don't worry: they'll Clemson it up.) I'm sure the possibility of BCS bowl appearances for traditional also-rans like Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Penn State, Boise State, Stanford and Oklahoma State are thrilling the hometown crowds.

So hooray for the BCS, the ignorant voters, the mis-programmed computers, the lack of head-to-head action. When every regular season game feels like a playoff, you've got the right formula.

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Pirates Get Closer to Playoffs

Think back to the searing excitement of the Dayton play-in games that blast off the NCAA basketball tournament. Remember how you wore out the edge of your seat awaiting the winner of the Northern Southeast Idaho Ag & Tech-Mildred P. McGillicutty game.

Great news! Baseball has just recreated the same heart-stopping sudden death format for its playoffs.

Starting next year, another Wild Card team will be added, so that after 162 games, a one-game tournament will determine who goes on to face a division-winner in the league division series.

The good news is that failing to win a division will have its consequences.

The bad news is that a yet-lesser team gets into the playoffs. The bad news is that the postseason gets yet another day longer. The bad news is that the Yankees and Red Sox become that much more likely to earn a berth every year. The bad news is that a team with a seven-game Wild Card edge can be ousted from contention by a vastly inferior opponent after one game. The bad news is that the more common a postseason berth, the less valued. The bad news is that this makes the baseball playoffs even less interesting and the regular season even less urgent.

The bad news is that on balance, this is bad news.