Uh oh.

Danny Graves got traded for flicking off the crowd, so I'm not sure what the southern Ohio response to cruising around the Dominican Republic with a gun in your car is. Slap on the wrist? I'd say the average Reds fan probably has a gun in their car anyway, if not a full-on gun rack.

Since this was not shot in the U.S. (presumably) there's not really any legality issues, right? I wouldn't be surprised if he had a clause in his contract which stated "Do not appear in any Spanish language rap video teases" and, perhaps more importantly "do not fiddle with any firearms, especially with your pitching hand." Though to his credit, he only actually touches the gun with his left hand.

Can we start this season, already? I'm dying to see us flounder around fourth place for 6 months before finally dying.

Competitive Imbalance

Let's categorize this one under depressing for most small and mid market baseball teams.

A-Rod is paid more than the entire Florida Marlins roster.

This is unbelievable. A-Rod will make $28M this season, the 33 player Florida Marlins? $21.8M. The average salary in the bigs just passed $3M, yet the Marlins do not have a single player that makes the AVERAGE.

Revenue sharing and a hard cap is what has made the NFL the dominant American sports league. Greater revenue sharing and a minimum salary floor is what's necessary to fix MLB.

Let the Speculation Begin....

According to this source from the Gray Lady, the bidding for A-Rod is going to start at $35M per season. This was the minimum bid his uber-agent Scott Boras gave to Yankees management at the start of Game Four. It appears that the number one should expect out there is $280M over 8. A new suitor has entered the ring also. The rumor mill is hot that Marlins (yes, the Marlins) will make a play for the all-world third baseman. A-Rod does call Miami his offseason home, but I just can't picture this deal coming into fruition.

One must read this post at AOL Fanhouse, a choose your own adventure story about the offseason choices of A-Rod. Click Here

There's Only One October...

After a college bowl game length break, the Senior Circuit Champion Rockies visit the AL Champ Red Sox tonight to start Game One of the Fall Classic.

Who you got?

The Rockies team, touched by God? Winners of 21 of the last 22?



Or the BoSox, win their $143M payroll? The team with the momentum? The team with a reputation for beating up senior citizens?




Early Vegas lines put the Sox at -220 and the Rox at +180. Even with all the analysts calling this a mismatch, I have to think that the Rockies stand a chance. If they can get by Beckett tonight, they will be well on their way to winning it at Coors in five.

What's your prediction?

Pitcher of Record

Baseball is the most intricate and detail oriented sport in America (Cricket has it beat, but I am not worried about sticky wickets). It is that detail that makes it great, and frustrating. Its detail is one of the reasons the modern fan does not appreciate baseball because they are either too stupid or too impatient to understand the nuances. However there are some rules that make absolutely no sense, and were obviously made in the 1800’s. The rule that bothers me the most is the rule behind the pitcher of record.

In order to earn a win as a starter you must go 5 innings. If you go under that you do not qualify, regardless of the score. You can lose if you go under 5, but not win. By itself that rule does not seem intimidating, or complicated, or jaded or whatever you want to call it. The problem arises when it comes time to decide who does actually win.

The part of the rule that gets me is if a starting pitcher leaves a game with his team winning before he pitches 5 innings, he is still ineligible for the win, even if the score does not change. In that situation, it is up to the discretion of the official scorekeeper to declare the pitcher of record. Therefore the official scorekeeper decides which relief pitcher did the most to contribute to the win, and that pitcher gets the win. But the starting pitcher cannot get the win. So as long as the score never ties and the lead never changes, the official scorekeeper decides the winner.

So here is my problem, didn’t the starting pitcher contribute the most to the win? Didn’t he do enough for his team to win? Shouldn’t that be the measure of who gets the win? In the logic of the rule some guy who comes in with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and gets 1 out can get the win for only facing 1 batter, but the starter who went 4 2/3rds innings and only let up 1 run can’t get the win. Also by that logic, every subsequent pitcher can give up 2 or more runs, thus giving up more runs than the starter, but as long as the lead does not change the official scorekeeper still must chose someone to get the win, and it can’t be the starter.

The starter can leave a game with the score 2-1 in the 5th with a blister, and by the end of the game the score is 25-17 he still can’t get the win. He could have the least earned runs, most innings pitched and most strikeouts of entire staff for the night, and still not win. I think that is a travesty of the rule system.

This is obviously an archaic rule hearkening back to the days before regular relief appearances and fragile starters. For Cy Young to not go 5 innings he either had to give up like 20 runs or get shot by Ty Cobb. Back then I understand the rule. But today it makes no sense. So shouldn’t we change the rule?

I have 2 possible solutions. First we can change the rule to read that a starting pitcher can only win if he leaves the game with his team ahead (pending runners and earned runs factored in), but there is no minimum. Or, we change the ‘win’ stat to reflect who earned the win, the starter win (SW) or the relief win (RW). For example if a starter goes only 3 innings, but his team never trails and wins the game he can earn a SW. But if a reliever comes in and cleans up the mess he earns a RP. This would fix the problem and add a new stat for fantasy junkies and Elias to track.

At the end of the day this situation only happens a handful of times a season, but with fantasy championships and players’ salaries tied to these stats, every win counts. Just think, if they kept those stats maybe ‘The Loogy’ would have won.

Channeling Jimmy Bowden...

A huge offseason looms for the Washington Nationals. They are entering their fourth year in Washington (hey, so am I!) and are prepared to open the $611M HOK-designed Nationals Park in SE DC. They recently hired Stan Kasten (formerly of the Braves) and have developed a plan of building a team and farm system to compete for the long term. In compliance of that vision and financial flexibility, they dropped their payroll precipitously this past year from $63M to $38M.

Here's a look at some of the moves they should and will make this offseason:

First, they should continue to hold the long-term vision of running the club. They have no need to worry about selling seats and luxury boxes in the short term, as they will certainly have a two-three year novelty of fans attending a new park. That being said, revenues will increase and they can make bigger plays in free agency.

Let's look at their existing contracts for 2008

Nick Johnson ($16.5M over 07-09; $5.5M in 08)
Cristian Guzman ($16.8M over 05-08; $4.2M in 08)
Austin Kearns ($17.5M over 07-09; $5M in 08)
Brian Scheider ($16M over 06-09; $4.9M in 08)
Ronnie Belliard ($3.5M over 08-09; $1.6M in 08)
Dmitri Young ($10M over 08-09; $5M in 08)

Their biggest in-house free agents are Ryan Zimmerman and Chad Cordero. They should absolutely sign Zimmerman as he is the new face of the franchise. Cordero had a down year, and I'm in the camp that 'closers' are vastly overvalued. They should be firm in negotiations with him.

Just recently, the star of the 2008 Free Agent class, Torii Hunter stated that he is interested in playing with Dmitri and would give the Nationals a long look. He also specifically stated that playing in majority African-American city would be an enormous plus. The flexibility to go after player like Hunter is exactly why the Nationals showed fiscal restraint in the past year. I could see the Nats getting Hunter with a $50M/5yr deal, with a team option for the sixth. Torii and Dmitri could help recruit LF Milton Bradley, as they could certainly get him on the cheap after his mental antics and torn ACL. He could be had for $8M over 2 with extensive performance and plate appearance incentives.

On the pitching front, I think they should try to resign (or go to arbitration) with their own talent Patterson, Bergmann, Chico and Hill. On the hot stove, I could see them making a move for either Kyle Lohse or Jason Jennings. Both look to command a $30M-$40M deal over 4 years.

Here's the imagined lineup for the 2008 Nats:

CF Torii Hunter
2B Ronnie Belliard
3B Ryan Zimmerman
RF Austin Kearns
1B Dmitri Young
LF Milton Bradley (or, Justin Maxwell, who has been very impressive in AA Ball)
C Bryan Schneider
SS Cristian Guzman

SP Kyle Lohse
SP Shawn Hill
SP John Patterson
SP Jason Bergmann
SP Matt Chico

RP Saul Rivera
RP Chris Schroder
RP Jon Rauch
RP Luis Ayala

By the way, a fantastic resource for MLB contracts:

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/

Schuerholz to Step Down ... The Best GM Ever?

In the biggest MLB story of the day, it appears that John Schuerholz will be stepping down as the General Manager of the Atlanta Braves. See the story here. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution (the preeminent source on Vick news, by the way), they report that Schuerholz will be moving to team president, allowing long time assistant Frank Wren to take over the GM reigns.

Either way, it looks like Schuerholz's tenure as GM of the team of the South is through. What then is his legacy? I would argue that he ranks at the very top of list for modern athletic GMs.

From a Moneyball perspective, the goal of the GM is to put a team in position to make the playoffs, and hope that you win the playoffs with a dissproportionate frequency. As Billy Beane stated, he built teams for the regular season so that the talent and numbers he'd acquire would win over a large 162 game sample. When thrown into a 5 game or 7 game (at most!) crapshoot of a playoff series, anything can happen. Thus, you cannot blame Schuerholz one bit for his team's playoff shortcomings (1 title in 14 postseason appearances).

That's why, I'd argue the accomplishment of Schuerholz is incredible. His teams reached the playoffs in 14 straight seasons. That's unfathomable in this era of MLB parity. His teams acheived a cumulative record of 1,594-1,092. He successfully transitioned from two distinct eras of Braves teams and players. Some may argue that what the Marlins have done is more remarkable - having two fantastic championship seasons interspersed with abject futility. Not me. I would say that to stay that good for that long is much, much more impressive.

Thoughts on the Schuerholz era? Is there a better GM in baseball?