There Are No Playoff Favorites

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
--George Santayana

Now that teams have re-positioned the linen on a laundry list of free agents and more starkly defined the balance of power in the two leagues, we're starting to hear some of the usual late-season drivel from the baseball media.

Specifically, you're starting to hear about who the pennant favorites are, as if there are no lessons to be gleaned from past post-seasons.

I even read one story by a former general manager calling the Royals the "odds-on favorites" to return to the World Series.

Right, because Kansas City entered last year's playoffs as clearly the best team. Oh wait, no they didn't. In fact, they had a 50% chance of being eliminated even before the playoffs really began.

Which was the same path paved by the World Champion Giants, who entered the post-season with the worst record among playoff teams and a sub-.500 second half.

In 2012, the teams with the four best records -- Oakland, New York, Washington and Cincinnati -- all fell to lesser teams. Indeed, three of the four lost in the first round. The Yankees fell in the ALCS to a Tigers team without a bullpen -- the secret sauce we correlate with post-season success.

In 2011, the Cardinals trailed the Brewers by six games at season's end, but enjoyed the final dogpile of the season.

And so on going back to the advent of the Wild Card. The playoffs are a flat out lottery. Get into the tournament, then get healthy, get hot and get lucky.

So who are the World Series favorites this year? No one, the same as every other year. 

Some teams could be said to be favorites in the sense that they will likely make the tournament, which 20 teams won't. But even if they win their division, the odds are 3-1 against them flying a 2015 pennant.

It would be nice if baseball "journalists" and "analysts" could make such calculations. But they're reluctant to remove their shoes in public.

The Worldwide Leader In Drivel

I teach my college students that there is precious little partisan political bias in network news, and anyone who says otherwise is just revealing their own personal partisan political bias. (I exempt Fox News, which is pretty overt in its bias, and therefore somewhat insulated from the criticism. I hear MSNBC tilts in the other direction, but I've never seen it.) Most reporters have professional pride and the ability to be fair, if not to cover all facets of every issue.

The major bias in news, I tell them, is in favor of news. Duh.

The major bias in non-news networks is for profit, and nowhere has that been more egregiously demonstrated than by ESPN in its lunatic ramblings about LeBron James.

I wondered how the network could become so unhinged that for three weeks it spent 60% of its radio programming -- I mean 60% of the 40% that's not commercials -- endlessly conjecturing about James's intentions. Considering that no "reporter" or "analyst" had a shred of information useful to the story, it seemed inconceivable that ESPN could dedicate such endless drivel to this non-story. I was especially amused by the "predictions" that were being dealt like poker cards, predictions based on wisps of air, as if parsing the intentions of the Soviet-era Kremlin. Only one person knew LeBron's heart and that person wasn't telling.

My musings came to a head on Tuesday, when ESPN radio's morning show literally chucked its coverage of baseball, World Cup and all else sporting to dedicate its airwaves to non-stop dead-horse beatings for the entire show. I understand the occasional Chris Berman and Dick Vitale, but had an entire network checked into Bellevue?

Then it all became clear. It turns out that James had convinced station brass to run a prime time one-hour extravaganza during which he would reveal his destination (and God knows what else for 60 whole minutes. Well, 32 minutes, after commercials.) In fact, ESPN hadn't been covering a story; it had been promoting an upcoming special on its own network.

Which makes me wonder, how much Connecticut spittle would have been projected over this issue had Fox Sports televised it instead. In other words, what was the real news value of LeBron's free agency. Maybe I'm just a hopeless Association-hater, but it's hard for me to imagine that even 25% of the actual airtime wasted would have been so dedicated, and I think something more like 8% is more accurate. It would be a shocking indictment of this infuriating network, if only it weren't shocking at all.

Word is that the proceeds from sponsorships for that hour were going to charity, but even if true, ESPN reaped copious benefit from LeBron's largess, pumping the airwaves with its station promos, reinforcing its brand, etc., etc. So it turns out that I was just a prop in the scenery during the three-week run-up, not a customer to be entertained. Good thing I began switching to public radio to hear actual news instead.

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My All-Star Roster

The composition following this statement is a study in trivia. Nothing you are about to read amounts to a hill of beans. Which is saying something for a blog called "braindrizzling" in which the topic is baseball. So you've been warned.

The aforementioned is so mentioned because this is about the All-Star squad, which matters almost entirely in the sense that a dozen of the 64 participants get bonuses for having their names selected. Beyond that, it's the fans game and they vote for the guys they want.

Here's the really surprising part: the masses do a great job. They are far more rational than the players and managers, who seem to select the guys with the best reputations and whom they like the best, respectively.

It doesn't matter, in part because no one has ever defined what constitutes an All-Star-worthy performance. Is it half a season of accomplishment? Is it the best 162 games, from last ASG to this one? Is it just about being the best player? The one fans want to see?  Or is it some combination of these?

Everyone seems to have their own, sometimes variable, formula. Here's mine, and it's no more defined than any other: I vote for the best players having the best seasons. How's that for vague? Albert Pujols is the NL first baseman unless he's hitting .230 with six home runs. Jerry Hairston, Jr. and his .695 lifetime OPS doesn't make my starting roster batting .400 with 20 dingers unless David Wright falls down a flight of stairs and takes Scott Rolen, Chipper Jones, Placido Polanco, Mark Reynolds and the Kung Fu Panda with him.

I take into consideration when a player has only played half of half the season, but I pay no mind whatsoever to whether a player is currently hurt. If he deserves the nod, I bestow it. Let the manager replace him.

That said, here are my votes for the Mid-Summer Classic.

NL

1B Albert Pujols

2B Chase Utley

3B David Wright

SS Hanley Ramirez

C Brian McCan

OF Ryan Braun

OF Andre Ethier

OF Matt Holliday

AL

1B Miguel Cabrera

2B Robinson Cano

3B Adrian Beltre

SS Derek Jeter

C Joe Mauer

OF Josh Hamilton

OF Ichiro Suzuki

OF Vernon Wells

DH Vlad Guerrero

You'll notice that there aren't any rookies or surprise names on this ballot. Jose Bautista is going to have to go all Mark McGwire on AL pitching for more than 260 at-bats before I get ramped up about him. Moreover, not everyone here is having a great year. Jeter's batting .286 with middling power and speed. McCann's at .259 and he's missed some games. They are still clearly the best in their league at their position. (It helps that no NL catcher or AL shortstop is lighting it up.)

There are plenty of tough calls here. Prince Albert sets a lofty standard, but Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn and Joey Votto all have OPS above .900. At least one of them will watch the game from a bar. ("Adam, your turn to buy a round!) The same in the AL, where Justin Morneau makes every bit the case Cabrera does, and Paul Konerko and Kevin Youklis are both having great years.

Chase Utley is by far the best second baseman in the senior circuit, so the fact that four other keystoners are putting up the same numbers in bigger ballparks doesn't excite me. David Wright and Scott Rolen are both great candidates, but Rolen has a history of fragility and Wright plays in a cavern. I gave the AL third sacker job to a raking Beltre, but Evan Longoria, ARod and Michael Young all make cases.

In the outfields, Josh Hamilton and Andre Ethier are the in-shooiest. I'm not so sure about Ichiro; you could have reasonably picked Alex Rios, Carl Crawford, Shin Soo Choo, Torii Hunter or Nick Swisher. Brett Gardner, a College of Charleston product, needs to show me more before I elect him to stardom. The same for Colby Rasmus in the NL, who's hitting up a storm, but we've yet to determine whether that front will blow through. Likewise, I eschewed Jayson Werth's ballpark-aided results, and Alfonso Soriano's inconsistency. Andrew McCutcheon is a stud in the Steel City, but he's a lock for the game as the Bucs' sole representative, so I gave Holliday the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I've employed woefully weak reasoning to break what amounts to a tie. It's no worse than penalty kicks.

Kudos to the fans: most of the names listed above are on the their wish list. In the AL, they've got Morneau at first, Longoria at third and Crawford in the outfield, all legitimate alternatives, though with Nelson Cruz's overblown Texas stats too close for comfort behind Crawford. They totter a bit on the NL squad, with Polanco wrongly leading Wright and Yadier Molina leading McCann. Jason Heyward is their worst selection, but who can blame them for irrational exuberance about a well-mannered 20-year-old stud?

I know, it's all drivel, and we'll forget who went to Anaheim by year's end when the real All-Star team (aka the New York Yankees) collects another championship trophy (yawn.) I can promise you this: it won't be nearly as exciting as the NCAA championship won yesterday by my home state Gamecocks, the pride of South Carolina, who defeated UCLA 2-1 in 11 innings. "No one can lick our 'Cocks."

See, drivel is suddenly looking good.

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