An Epoch Ended in 2012 and We Might Not Have Noticed

In 2009, with the sting of the Killer Bees a mere pinprick and Roy Oswalt three years from MLB irrelevance, Astros GM Ed Wade signed a pair of middle relievers to hefty contracts and horded his aging stars in an effort to ... well ...field a respectable team, but not a contender. Predictably, the Farm atrophied and the team finished a combined 79 games under .500 from 2007-2011. When new ownership bought out the regrettable Drayton MacLane, nanoseconds passed before Wade was mercifully jettisoned.

And with Wade, went an epoch, never to be seen again.

Starting in 2012, God has bestowed the general manager position upon no more dolts or Luddites unable to discern what every other GM understands. There exists in 2016, no general manager, or VP of Baseball Operations, upon whom opposing clubs can giddily dump their problems. No one is as patently without a clue as Ed Wade anymore.

Every club in Major League Baseball employs an analytical department that complements the scouting department with statistical analysis, psychological profiling and who knows what else. There is no one left to get fleeced of, for example, a low batting average/high on base guy, because every team understands his value.

And the days when front offices debated the value of analytics is long gone. Every front office appreciates the competitive disadvantage attendant to knowing less than what a dozen websites (one one third-rate blogger from Charleston) know about players' true value. 

A decade ago, I could wring a column a week out of reviewing major transactions and identifying the patent lunacy of half of them. Signing a player after a good season without accounting for his ridiculously high BABIP. Valuing a pitcher with a nominally good W-L record without accounting for the conditions under which his team won. Spending money on declining veterans when it's time for a rebuild. And so on.

It just doesn't happen anymore.

Ironically, the last obviously head-scratching trade was made by the Grand Wizard of analytics himself, the guy who made his name bamboozling his counterparts a decade ago. Last winter, Billy Beane flipped star third-sacker Josh Donaldson, a seven-win player with five tools, for three-win third baseman Brett Lawrie and some spare parts.

All Donaldson did was win the MVP Award for a nine-win season in which he paced the league in total bases, runs scored, and RBIs while slugging 41 homers and 43 doubles/triples for Toronto while Lawrie backslid a win.

But even then, there might be extenuating circumstances. Lawrie is four years younger and can play other infield positions. Two nearly Major League-ready hurlers accompanied him to Oakland. And there were reports that Beane and Donaldson weren't gracefully co-existing.

The point is, the days of the doofus GM are over. Now even Billy Beane can get jobbed. And all I got out of it is one column.

It Can Only Get Better In the Land of Cheese Steaks

You're going to see a lot of prognosticators assume the renovating Phillies will hold up the division in the 2016 standings after their MLB-worst 99 losses in 2015. But low expectations being the key to happiness, the scarred Philadelphia sports fan may be in for some joy.

Consider what the team paraded out for a starting rotation last year absent the now-departed Cole Hamels :

Three quarters of the team's starts made in 2015 (number of starts in parentheses):
*Aaron Harang (29) 4.86 ERA
*Jerome Williams (21) — 6.13 ERA as a starter
David Buchanan (15) — 6.99 ERA
Adam Morgan (15) 4.48 ERA
*Sean O’Sullivan (13) — 6.08 ERA
*Chad Billingsley (7) — 5.84 ERA
Severino Gonzalez (7) — 7.92 ERA
Alec Asher (7) — 9.31 ERA
*Kevin Correia (5) — 6.56 ERA
*Phillipe Aumont (1) — 13.50 ERA
*Dustin McGowan (1) — 10.80 ERA as starter

*Justin De Fratus (5.51) led the team in relief innings pitched.

Can they possibly soil themselves so badly in 2016? Sure. The steadying influence of Hamels is gone and Aaron Nola (6-2, 3.59) could stumble in his sophomore campaign. But everyone with a star before his name is gone; in their slots are replacement-level veteran Charlie Morton, middling rotation piece Jeremy Helickson, and many more innings for promising second-year hurlers Nola, Alec Asher and Jerad Eickhoff (3-3, 2.65 in eight starts).

NL foes may not quake in their cleats, but the results can hardly get worse. One positive surprise and Philadelphia is challenging Miami for third place in the East.

Likewise the lineup. The leading run scorer in 2015 was shortstop Feddy Galvis, who crossed the plate 63 times. Four of the Phillies' eight most frequent starters produced OBP below .300.

Besides flipping field managers, the added seasoning for Galvis, good-looking keystoner Maikel Franco, promising outfielders Odubel Herrera and Aaron Altherr, and the signing of defensive outfielder Peter Bourjos could pump life into the moribund franchise. It's not Murderers Row but it figures to provide some support for the pitchers.

On defense, moving out human statue Ryan Howard permanently from first will help, as will Bourjos and more innings for Herrera. The bench is actually a strength, as the Phils refuse to part with semi-failed former prospects like Cody Asche and Dom Brown.

In a place where the hockey team clings tenaciously to the formula that won the Stanley Cup just 37 years ago and the basketball team's tanking now enters its graduate studies, a 75-win baseball team or emergence from the cellar would be cause for celebration.

Go ahead and buy the noisemakers.

Captain Underpants and Jayson Stark: Higher Expectations for 2016

In baseball, as in stocks, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Every season, ballers rise from the ashes of the previous year (and they don't even have to play in Phoenix) to evaporate their previous season's tally. 

You might call this the Jayson Stark phenomenon, after the brilliant ESPN and former Philadelphia Inquirer writer who's made a career documenting these idiosyncrasies.

But documenting what has already happened and identifying them in advance are horses of a different color (even if the subject doesn't play in Philly). Let's go one better than Jayson and project who might find his way into a Stark column.

Jackie Bradley Jr. -- did the Red Sox defensive whiz figure it out after a trip to the farm last summer or did he just enjoy one good month? Either way, by mid-April Jayson Stark will be comparing seasons. The University of South Carolina grad waited until August to record his sixth hit, first double, second homer, first SB, and fourth RBI and run scored. He could achieve that by his third game.

Tanner Roark -- jostled between the rotation and the pen, Roark fizzled after a strong rookie campaign. He could match his 2015 win total -- 4 -- by May of this season as the Nats return him to the rotation after losing Jordan Zimmermann and Doug Fister.

Nick Markakis -- the head-scratching recruitment of Markakis to the rebuilding Braves got even itchier last year when the former Oriole reached base at a commendable .370 rate but popped just three home runs in 686 plate appearances, none before the All-Star Break. Markakis had never before failed to reach double-digits in big flies. It's nearly inconceivable that he doesn't surpass his season total by Memorial Day.

Anthony Rendon -- In his first full season, the Nationals' hot cornerman looked like Mike Piazza at the plate, displaying a good eye and hard contact every time he hit the ball. Last season, exiled to second base and hurt for half the schedule, Rendon mustered five lonely homers and drove home just 25 runs. Back full-time at his natural position, watch him reach those marks by the quarter pole.

Jake Arrieta -- this works in reverse too, and it almost certainly will for the Cy Young winner. Arrieta held opponents to seven runs the last two months of the regular season; he'll do that in two bad games this Spring.

Dee Gordon and A.J. Pierzynski -- both had outstanding, though uncharacteristic, seasons in 2015 and are highly unlikely to repeat. The Braves' backstop is unlikely to play much at age 39 with the addition of defensive gem Tyler Flowers and the continued development of Christian Bethancourt. His three homers and 14 RBI in April alone might last him most of the summer in 2016. Likewise, Gordon, who collected 78 safeties for the Marlins by Memorial Day. One hamstring pull could make that tally last all season in 2016.

Andrew Cashner -- Jayson Stark will be keeping his eyes glued to the Padres' big righty, who was saddled with four losses in April 2015 alone despite a 2.61 ERA. Don't be surprised if it takes him most of 2016 to reach that total.

Shelby Miller -- Choosing Miller for this list is like winning a Republican presidential primary -- any dope can do it. Miller earned exactly one win for the Braves after May, despite a 3.02 ERA for the year. Now with an improved Diamondbacks team, expect him to surpass that by his fifth start.

Jon Jay -- Relegated like a bad English football team, the man hilariously nicknamed "The Federalist" stepped on the field only occasionally for the Cardinals last season. Now the Padres' starting centerfielder, he won't need long to produce six doubles and a stolen base, each of which will top 2015's totals.

Corey Seager -- okay, including the baby-faced Dodger infielder is cheating just a bit. The prized prospect impressed in a September call-up, but he only came to the plate 113 times. Given a full season to showcase his talents, he'll make his 17 runs scored last year look like child's play by Paraguayan Independence Day.*

Hunter Pence -- What's a day without a reference to Captain Underpants? (Hint: Say his name fast.) The best worst player in the game fell asleep an injured member of a non-playoff team and woke up a rehabilitated member of the World Series favorite SF Giants in an even year. He hit nine home runs and scored 30 times in 2015. I think he's already eclipsed those marks and it's only February.

There'll be others I can't predict. But Jayson Stark will tell us about them...after they happen.


*May 14-15

Are the Padres the 2016 Blue Jays?

In 2013, the Toronto Blue Jays pushed their chips to the middle of the table, acquiring Jose Reyes, R.A. Dickey, Melky Cabrera, Mark Buehrle and others for a run at the sagging AL East. At 74-88, the gamble went bust, and it only improved a little the next year when the Jays finished 83-79.

The team stayed together, though, and with Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion anchoring the lineup, and of course the addition of MVP Josh Donaldson, Toronto catapulted to the top of the AL standings in 2015. The moves made by GM Alex Anthopoulos in the 2013 took two years to pay dividends.

Cross the continent and a similar scenario might appear to be playing out in San Diego. The Padres' new GM, A.J. Preller, collected a bulk set of spare parts -- Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Justin Upton, Craig Kimbrel -- for renewed relevance in the NL West. The Friars were becoming MLB's version of the Premier League's Everton -- a perennial also-ran rarely good or bad enough to be noticed.

They got noticed -- for stinking up the joint, just as the Blue Jays had, skidding to the same 74-88 result. Kemp and Myers were mostly a disaster, Kimbrel suffered his worst season (he was merely brilliant) and Upton performed as advertised.

Now in 2016, are the Priests poised to become this year's Blue Jay? No, no they are not. Here's why.

Kemp and Myers did not stumble last season; they are both broken. Once the favorite toys in the chest -- Myers is a former Rookie of the Year and Kemp had his 2011 MVP stolen by Ryan Braun's doping -- neither is that anymore. Injuries have reduced Kemp to a replacement player -- 1.7 WAR the last two seasons -- and the league has caught on to Myers and his free-swinging ways. Each is a disaster in the field, Kemp yet more cringe-inducing than Myers.

Worse, Kimbrel is gone, traded for prospects, as are Joaquin Benoit and Ian Kennedy, with little on the farm to replace them. Upton, the team's lone salvation, has moved on too, and who can blame him? San Diego did ink reliever Ryan Madson to an overstuffed three-year deal, but is otherwise without much in the way of assets.

Worse, unlike the AL East, the NL West is ascendant. The Dodgers still have a pile of talent and money. The Giants are salivating at the even year with Johnny Cueto aboard. Arizona added Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller to a squad already showing signs of emergence. The Padres are toast in that crowd.

Where the Blue Jays took a step forward their second year after the big moves, the Padres are more likely to step back. This is a team that needs to admit it is in complete rebuild and get about jettisoning all the veteran talent it can. The alternative is to remain like Everton, neither champion nor relegation fodder, just there, filling up the standings.

How Far the Mat-y Have Fallen

From 2010-2013, Mat Latos was a rotation stalwart for the Padres and Reds, posting a 51-35, 3.27 line, fanning nearly a batter per frame, averaging just under 200 innings and serving as ace of the staff.

Always known as a bit of a hothead, Latos verbally flipped off the Reds when they sent him to Miami for prospects. And there, his strikeout rate plummeted, ERA skyrocketed, good health evaporated and general prospects disappeared. By the end of last season, which he spent hopscotching across three Major League and two Minor League teams, the Mat Latos baseball chapter appeared closed.

This past week, with Latos slinking towards baseball oblivion, the desperate White Sox inked him to a one-year, $3 million deal in the hopes that he can recover some of the magic of his first four full seasons. In an age of $15 million qualifying offers, the relatively paltry free agent sum Latos commanded is testimony to how little teams now value him. An ace 12 months ago, he is today barely in the deck, and if his results don't improve quickly, he'll enter trivia answer status a year hence.

The familiar arc of Latos's career will play out again for someone else this year, as every year. Some reliable hurler or another will, in baseball terms, suddenly fall off the cliff, and the team confidently dependent on his performance will unexpectedly suffer in the standings. That it will occur is certain; to whom is the mystery and what makes predictions such slippery business.

New Fielding Metrics Say Brian McCann Is a Hall of Famer

Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, the science of analyzing catcher defense is entering a transformative stage. New in-depth research by Baseball Prospectus and others has determined that framing -- the art of employing catcher stance and glove movement to confuse the umpire into calling a strike on a pitch that was actually outside the strike zone -- has an immense impact on the game.

The impact, in fact, goes beyond the balls and strikes in question; research demonstrates that it alters the entire pitcher-batter dynamic. Consequently, framing mavens behind the plate can have significant impact over the course of thousands of pitches in a season.

One-Two-Three-For Dartmouth!
How much impact? Based on complex new calculations derived from video of every single Major League pitch since 1988, Baseball Prospectus asserts that Brad Ausmus added 24 wins over his career with his cunning deception. Other big gainers include Jose Molina, a wretched hitter whose catching prowess gave him 22 wins of value in his career; Yadier Molina, who is even better than we thought; and Jonathan Lucroy, who doubles his career value at this relatively early stage.

But the two backstops whose stock ratchets up most significantly are Russell Martin and Brian McCann. They rank third and fifth among active catchers (information only goes back to 1988, so the readjustment can only be done for recent players) in the number of wins added to their value by the new calculations. What's special about that is that each has demonstrated excellence at the plate as well as behind it and are now both in serious contention for the Hall of Fame, if voters take this information into consideration and further research doesn't debunk or mitigate these findings.

Adding in the new defensive metrics, McCann, 32 and Martin, 33 now rank seventh and ninth all time in WAR for catchers. McCann slots in just behind (though by a wide margin) Yogi Berra, and Martin after Joe Torre, but both surpass Mickey Cochran, Roy Campanella, Roger Bresnahan and others previously enshrined. (Of course, Campy comes with caveats.)

Neither is done, of course, though McCann seems to have lost his defensive powers, Samson-like, with the departure of his facial hair. Each could certainly accrue another 10 career wins, inviting a powerful Hall argument for each.

The Big Loser
Who loses? Former Miami steals-killer Charles Johnson enjoyed a brief burst of fame, but the metrics suggest that was his entire game. Retrospect suggests he was a replacement level player for his career. Worse, the new data shoves Jorge Posada off any foundation his Hall of Fame argument might have rested on. The new accounting says Posada's entire career had all the value of Lucroy's first six years.

Further research is being done every day by dozens of seamheads that will almost certainly tweak these calculations, and the tweaks will be further tweaked and then tweaked again. But their vector probably won't change much, altering our perception of catchers over time.

But Wait, There's One More
There's one more guy who benefits from better information -- the greatest hitting catcher of all time. The knock on Mike Piazza was that he couldn't throw anyone out, and new data about framing and pitch blocking isn't going to change that. But Piazza, it turns out, was a superb blocker and framer, gilding seven career wins onto his already bulging HOF resume.

Don't you feel even sillier for not voting for him now?

10 Reasons Cam Newton Should've Acted Like a Grownup

Panthers quarterback Cam Newton sulked through a post-Stuper Bowl news conference, offering one-word answers and non-answers for about three minutes before walking out.

He hasn't hired me to help with his PR, but if he did, I would offer these reasons why he should apologize and consider a different approach:

1. That just wasn't very nice.
2. You can't claim to be "a kid" anymore. Time to act like an adult.
3. The word for people who celebrate wins and sulk over losses is: juvenile.
4. Didn't your mother teach you good manners?
5. These reporters may be annoying and ask stupid questions, but they are a big part of the reason you earn tens of millions of dollars and are idolized by people across the nation. Without media coverage there is no National Football League.
6. Do you not understand that the TV cameras were on? You didn't just walk out on a gaggle of idiot reporters; you walked out on America. 
7. You embarrassed your team.
8. You're supposed to be a leader. Leaders aren't juvenile. (See #3.)
9. YouTube lives forever. 
10. What he said.

Big Free Agent Deals Don't Equal Pennants

Now that the hot stove has cooled, it's tempting to review off-season winners and losers by the yardstick of big free-agent signings and high-salary acquisitions. Not only is that demonstrably the wrong lens through which to analyze the off-season, the off-season isn't much of a precursor to the season itself.

Consider who was active last winter. The White Sox brought in Jeff Samardzija, Adam LaRoche and Melky Cabrera, and nonetheless posted another losing record. Miami acquired Dee Gordon, Dan Haren and Mat Latos -- and sputtered to a sub-.500 finish. And most significantly, the Red Sox inked deals with Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez, who turned in two of the worst performances in the Majors, consigning Boston to last place.

Once again, New Englanders are tantalized by the upcoming season with David Price anchoring the rotation and Craig Kimbrel closing, particularly during an off-season in which the Yankees uncharacteristically stayed put. It seems far more likely that the Sox will succeed in 2016 because of the relative pittance they pay Xander Bogarts, Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley than the giant contract Price commands.

The Trout Effect
Indeed, the value of big payrolls is measurably declining, and not just anecdotally because the Royals and Mets squared off in the World Series and only two of the 90-win teams were Top Ten in payroll (with Texas 10th.). In 2009, there was a 47% correlation between payroll and wins; that was down to 21% last year. Large payrolls allow franchises to withstand one bad deal but they are decreasingly relevant otherwise.

One big reason for that is the disconnect between the way players age and the way they are paid. Many athletes -- think Ken Griffey Jr., Albert Pujols and Mike Trout -- peak in their first few years. After 30, they decline rapidly. Griffey is a first ballot HOFer despite averaging 19 homers and a .260 batting average after age 30.

Players are salary-constrained their first six full seasons. That means most regulars won't reach free agency until at least 29 -- Trout will be an exception -- right about the time their performance begins tailing off. Most free agent signings are rearview mirror deals.

Damn the Torpedoes!
In this intriguing recap of the hot stove period, Sports On Earth's Anthony Castrovince lauds those clubs that stayed the course, even when the course did not involve free agent adventures. As the Blue Jays demonstrated in 2015, sometimes allowing a good roster to just play is the best strategy.

Last season, only three of the 30 best players joined their teams via free agency. It's likely that the best players in baseball in 2016 will be the likes of Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Carlos Correia, Manny Machado, Clayton Kershaw and their ilk, not Jason Heyward or Wei-Yin Chen, whose net worth increased nearly $300 million combined this winter.

The Braves Won the Trade and Lost the Season

Of all the moves consummated so far this off-season, one of the most intriguing involves the Braves and Diamondbacks, in which the D-backs get an orange in exchange for some shiny rocks.

That is, Arizona knows what its end of the deal brings: Shelby Miller and a Single-A pitching prospect, which is to say, Shelby Miller. The 25-year-old righty enters his fourth season cost-controlled with a 3.22 lifetime ERA. If your immediate aim is a pennant, which is the profile of a team that signs Zack Greinke to a fat contract, Miller is a find.

Atlanta, by dealing Miller, is telling us what we already suspected: damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead to 2018. That's the year after the franchise basks in the fresh bloom of a new stadium in a new town.

So the Braves cashed in Miller for a haul of youthful talent. First, there's Ender Inciarte, also 25, who is all batting average, speed and outfield defense. Atlanta's young pitchers will appreciate his glove behind them in the field, not so much the lack of run support he'll contribute to.

Promising Triple-A hurler, 24-year-old Aaron Blair, might be one of those pitchers soon. Low strikeout totals belie low ERAs in high scoring environments. A good addition to a rebuilding club.

Then there's homeboy Dansby Swanson, the shiniest object in the bag. A shortstop out of Vanderbilt selected with the #1 pick in last year's amateur draft, he did nothing to diminish his status as a 21-year-old in Single-A. If your eye is on a distant horizon, the most recent #1 pick is a nice prize.

So the Braves relinquished their second-best starter, but got back a good defensive outfielder, a pitching prospect and a potential star at middle infield. It's the riskier side of the equation and its payoff will take a couple of years, but the likelihood is the scales will tip their way in the long run. That's the side you want to be on if you're not concerned about the present.

How in God's Name Do Hail Marys Work?

For the fourth time this season, I witnessed a game tying or winning Hail Mary throw into the end zone yesterday in the Packers-Cardinals game. Down seven with five seconds left, Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers scrambled away from a withering Arizona rush and flung the ball past the goal line, as everyone on the field, in the stands and watching across the world knew he would.

It's as if God hears a Hail Mary and answers the prayer of the hopeless cause. Maybe the throw should be called a St. Jude. Though, honestly, Mother Mary's results are astonishing.

The gentlemen defending on this play are the globe's greatest American football players. They are athletic freaks in size, strength, speed and agility. They are experienced in the art of defending against the pass. One of the offending defenders, Patrick Peterson, is an All-Pro, which is to say he is among the six or eight greatest pass defenders on Planet Earth.

And yet neither he nor his compatriots can figure out how to knock down this up-for-grabs heave.

I am completely at a loss over how this happens. I am unathletic and middle-aged; I stand 5'9" 160 pounds. I haven't defended a pass in two decades. And yet I know how to prevent a receiver from catching a rainbow. Just get in the way!

In this particular case, Packer receiver Jeff Janis slid in front of the defenders as the ball began its ascent from Rodgers's hand, 41 yards downfield. I could see he was going to catch the ball as soon as the camera panned to the goal line scrum. There was plenty of time for Peterson or Rashad Johnson to slide in front of him. What they did instead, was a colossal, epic, jaw-dropping fail.

And it's becoming pretty common.

So, I implore you, dear reader: leave a comment, explaining how this desperation measure entirely absent a strategy, ever works. Any theory you've got is a step up from my current state of bewilderment.

Why Ben Roethlisberger Is An Asshole

Tracy Wolfson is a professional sports journalist, a knowledgeable sideline reporter with 10 years of experience, a wife and a mother of three sons. None of these descriptions are themselves reasons that she deserves respect.

Following the Bengals' epic collapse of composure against the Steelers in the Wild Card game yesterday, Wolfson asked Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger how his shoulder felt. Rothlisberger had been carted off the field after absorbing a big hit and returned to the game to lead his team on the winning drive seemingly absent the ability to throw downfield.

Evidently Roethlisberger didn't want to linger on the role his injury played in the game. He could have dismissed the question respectfully by saying his shoulder wasn't an issue or it felt good enough to play or he didn't want his injuries to diminish the team's achievement. Instead he said, on national TV, in different words and with a smile, fuck you, Tracy.

It actually sounded more like "I'm just glad we won." Tomato tomahto. It amounted to a disrespectful non-answer. If you invited your neighbor over your house and asked him or her about their ailing shoulder and they said "I'm just glad it's sunny today," you'd wonder what their problem was.

The answer didn't shock me, but her response did. Instead of pressing the question and at least demanding a respectful answer, she let him off the hook. "Why did I know that was going to be your answer?" is what she said.

Here's why, Tracy: because you've let him get away with this condescension before. Stand up for yourself!

A benign question and benign, rambling, cliche-ridden response later, Wolfson tried again, querying whether the shoulder would be ready for the next playoff game. Again, Roethlisberger could have said he'd be ready regardless, or they'd find out that week or simply that his shoulder was fine. Instead, he chose to repeat the first non-answer. That is, he chose to be a patronizing asshole, on national TV, one more time.

It seems that Bill Belicheck has made it fashionable to disdain reporters who are doing their job and asking reasonable, fair, even easy questions. Gregg Popovich is now lauded for treating interviewers like pond scum for no reason. I would like to see a reporter demand of him, in front of a live national audience, why he feels it's necessary to belittle the interviewer.

Of course, the real problem is that the networks interview these guys at all. When I was a reporter, if someone was a lousy interview, I wouldn't look to them for quotes. If Belicheck, Popovich and Rothlisberger can't be civil and respectful, find other people to interview. Everyone will be happier.

I worked as a radio reporter in one town that was having big issues with its water system. The town supervisor would purposely lower his voice or mumble when the questions got tough, so that I couldn't use those answers in my stories. As a result, I stopped calling him and instead sought out more critical voices. When he asked me why I didn't talk to him, I described why it was his own fault. We agreed that I would give him another chance and when I did he answered my questions directly.

It turns out that Roethlisberger may have a separated shoulder and miss the divisional round game against Denver. I wonder how smug he feels now that he can't insult Tracy Wolfson about it.

A Fan's Identity Crisis

In 1993, following the death of Ewing Kaufman and eight years after the Kansas City Royals' only World Series championship (to that point), David Glass took the reins of the franchise. At that point, I had been a diehard Royals fan, despite growing up 1200 miles away, for 23 years. I attended the 1976 playoffs at Yankee Stadium and died a little inside when Chris Chambliss belted a ninth-inning, game-seven home run to foreclose the Royals' World Series aspiration.

Though I had never been to the state of Missouri, I followed my team and clung to my idolatry despite a string of losing seasons, because that's what a fan does.

Glass, former CEO and board chair at WalMart, was not so much a fan. Glass was a businessman who had made a career racing to the retail bottom. He deduced that a similar strategy would work in Major League Baseball, as long as he defined "worked" as "made a profit."

So Glass bled the franchise, secure in the knowledge that fans -- short for fanatics -- would continue to buy tickets and watch games on TV, not only because fanatics are fanatical but also because every game featured an opponent who might be worth watching. If the buying public wasn't interested in purchasing a ticket to see Mike Macfarlane and Hipolito Pichardo, a sufficient percentage of it would pay to see Mo Vaughn, Jim Thome, Roger Clemens and Cal Ripken.

Here's the Wikipedia entry extolling Glass' early "accomplishments" as owner:

Under Glass' leadership, the board cut the payroll budget from $41 million to $19 million. During the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-1995, Glass opposed any settlement with the players' union without a salary cap, and supported the use of strike breaking "replacement" players, despite a court ruling that the use of replacement players violated federal labor law

Lovely. So my favorite team was being guided by a Neandethal who cared not one whit about his team's place in the standings.

Letting Go of My Team
As you might imagine, my fanhood waned in the '90s, both because I grew other interests and because my team was literally a lost cause. By the early 2000s I had largely stopped following the Royals, who had not been competitive for 23 years and had no prospects of improving upon that record.

Indeed, despite the hiring of Dayton Moore as GM from the successful Atlanta franchise, KC had little to show for a string of high draft picks -- among Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Luke Hochevar and Billy Butler, only Gordon had performed as advertised. When they hired Ned Yost, a dinosaur manager who disdained new and improved baseball analytics, I scoffed. It occurred to me that not only was KC a pathetic shell of an organization, its mission was at odds with my fandom.

So in 2005, when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, I seized upon the opportunity to attach myself to a new team. Living by then in Charleston SC, I was a lot closer to the District of Columbia than to Kansas City, and I could begin anew with a franchise whose long-term goal of a championship justified the lean times early on. And indeed, early investments paved the way for a pennant contender by 2012.

Falling Back In Love With My Ex
And then a funny thing happened in Kansas City. Moore's new strategy of signing glove-first, high-contact players for his spacious ballpark, combined with a pitching rotation built from back to front, began paying dividends. The Royals won 86-89-95 games the last three years, earning two playoff berths and winning a World Series title with thrilling never-say-die performances. The Little Engine That Could is eminently rootable.

Meanwhile, despite a pile of talent, the Nationals have stumbled the last few years, unable to win a single playoff series. Their stars can be cantankerous and their new ballpark is a junk pile. My head says I'm a fan but my heart is not with the program.

What's a boy to do?  I don't have a favorite football, basketball or hockey team. Being a Royals fan, and later a Nats fan, has been part of my identity, and now I seem to be suffering from a split personality. In a baseball sense, I'm bipolar. It seems clear to me that a fan divided against himself can't stand, but if I return to my childhood crush it would require divorcing my current partner, to whom I have promised fidelity, til death do we part.

I am vexed. I must choose by Opening Day. Stay tuned, or help.

MLB Demonstrates the Uselessness of Projection Systems

Major League Baseball is touting today the Steamer baseball projections for 2016. Steamer is one of several Sabermetric projection systems -- including Fangraphs' ZIPS, Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA and the Hardball Times' Oliver -- that offer a crystal ball of sorts on future player and team performance.

These systems generally work the same way, projecting the accomplishments of players by comparing their careers to similar players in history, averaging the performances of those similar players in their next season and adjusting that to the player in question.

The MLB.com story is not a particularly interesting read. It projects that Miguel Cabrera will win another batting title, Clayton Kershaw will again top the pitching charts and Giancarlo Stanton will once more outslug the field. 

Shocking.

This is what you get with projection systems, which have no ability to predict the unpredictable. The 2015 accomplishments of Jake Arrieta, Dee Gordon, AJ Pollock, Dallas Keuchel, the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets were no less a mystery to these projection systems than to you.

They also have no ability to predict outlying performances. They will never project any player will slam 58 home runs, bat .360 or accrue 21 pitching wins unless he has done that regularly in the past. 

Moreover, Steamer does not attempt to project playing time, so even though Stanton has missed 40 games a season in his career, the projection assumes he plays 150 games. (Some of these systems do take playing time into account, which means they are wildly wrong slightly less often.)

These systems gave us the Angels, Dodgers and Nationals as baseball's best teams in 2015. They got the AL East and West almost exactly wrong. They offer some mild insights that can be almost completely encapsulated in 13 simple rules.

So don't bother reading the article. (Read this one about Statcast instead.) And let's just enjoy the raging unpredictability of the game that served us so well last year.

What's Wrong With HGH?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top Sports Hypocricies of 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All I Want for Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pete Rose Conundrum Is Really Kind of Simple

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

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

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

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

Instead we have Phil Rizzuto and Lloyd Waner.

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

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

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

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

Are We In A New Era of Baseball?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Defense of the Player Opt-Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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