Category Archives: Baseball

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The Kansas City Royals or Long-term Strategic Thinking in a Buyer’s Market

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So you're saying there's a chance.

So you’re saying there’s a chance.

The Kansas City Royals perfectly illustrate the difficulties of winning in the steroid era with a small-market team. Consider that between 1975 and 1990, the Royals had 12 winning seasons in which they won two AL pennants and one world series. In the fifteen-year period from 1997 to 2012, the team managed only one winning season, in 2003, finishing 83-79. The reason, to a large degree, can be traced to an economic disparity in baseball that began, coincidentally, about 15 years ago.

In 1985, the year the Royals won the world series, their payroll was a little over $11 million, just slightly above the league average. Only 8 teams will have a lower payroll than the Royals in 2013, including the Houston Astros, who will spend less on their entire opening-day team than the Yankees will spend on what remains of Alex Rodriguez. In the American League, the Yankees will spend almost $150 million more than the Royals this year. To steal/mangle a line from King Theoden in The Two Towers, “So much money. What can men do against such reckless spending?”
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An Open Letter to Stan Kasten

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Dear Stan Kasten,

Thank you for the form letter I received today thanking me for my support of the Los Angeles Dodgers and detailing the renewal information for my season tickets. As a 2012 season-ticket holder, please allow me a few words for whoever reads this letter in lieu of you.

Ownership’s supposed level of commitment to winning in 2013 is built upon a troubling organizational decision to both take on and award enormous long-term contracts to players who are over the age of 30. Not only this, but the quality of talent sure to take the field in 2013 and beyond has been experiencing a noticeable decline in performance over the past few years.
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Greatness vs. Greatness

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Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera will be the American League MVP. Either is the right choice, but who had the better season?

Trout had a 10.7 WAR. Not sure just how amazing this number is? It qualifies as the 26th best mark of all time, excluding the dead ball era. He played a premium defensive position and played it well. He led the league in stolen bases.

Miguel Cabrera won the triple crown, a feat only achieved by 17 men in the history of the game and not since Carl Yastrzemski’s epic 1967 season. He also had an OPS of .999, the best mark in the league. He played third base and was pretty meh.
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The Disaster that is the New York Yankees – Part Two

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The Yankees were arguably the best team in baseball this year. The future, however, does not look promising. If you sense a measure of glee in my writing, it’s only because you’re very intuitive and/or you read this sentence.
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The Disaster that is the New York Yankees – Part One

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The Yankees are getting obliterated by the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS. Why is a team that was demonstrably better in the regular season about to get swept? First, Joe Girardi has done a terrible job as manager. Second, bad luck. Third, the playoffs are inherently a roll of the dice.

To Girardi. He has always been a bit obsessive and controlling. Remember, this is the guy who chose to walk a career .225 BA/.301 OBP/.356 SLG hitter to load the bases in order to get a better matchup in the first inning of the first game of the 2012 season. As absurd as that move was, it paled in comparison to the move he didn’t make in the 9th inning of game 3 of the ALCS. Continue reading →

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Get Ready For Condominiums

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The Dodgers traded for Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto today, taking on over 200 million in salary for the next five years on Gonzalez and Crawford alone. The Dodgers team now only vaguely resembles the team that jumped out to the best record in baseball through the first two months of the 2012 season, and while it is unquestionably better, it comes with a price. We just don’t know what that price will be yet. Continue reading →

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Yeesh

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Melky Cabrera was suspended not long ago for 50 games for testing positive for a banned substance, depriving the Giants of their second best hitter this season for the stretch run. How big a blow is this? Cabrera’s splits – .346/.390/.516 (all career highs) are astounding, and are one of the bright spots for the Giants in an otherwise supremely bland offense. Continue reading →

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You Can’t Have It Both Ways

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If you haven’t been following the Nationals this year, you’ve missed one of the best teams in baseball and the running storyline of their young ace Stephen Strasburg. Washington General Manager Mike Rizzo decided to sit Strasburg for the rest of the season once he reached approximately 160 innings pitched in order to protect Strasburg’s arm. This is really only an issue because the Nationals are rolling towards the postseason, and if the idea of shelving perhaps your best player during a pennant chase for no obvious reason seems bizarre, then feel free to join in the Rizzo bashing. Continue reading →

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Craig Kimbrel For Cy Young

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The NL Cy Young race is exceptionally close this season. There are about 15 pitchers in the National League that are in position to win the award, one of whom is Aroldis Chapman. The case for Chapman was laid out by Jayson Stark in this piece – http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_jayson/id/8265725/the-case-aroldis-chapman-winning-national-league-cy-young-award.

The central argument is that Chapman, a reliever, is the dominant pitcher of the year, more so than any other starter. But is he even the best relief pitcher in the NL?
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Last Victorino Post I Promise

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It’s impossible to watch baseball without an eye towards the romantic, but analyzing baseball is all about the math. A player’s value on the field has nothing to do with how they play the game, and everything to do with their production. Here’s a link to a puff piece on ESPN that fails miserably in assessing new Dodger left-fielder Shane Victorino.

http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/dodger-report/post/_/id/1734/victorino-bugs-people-and-doesnt-care

The most entertaining excerpts, with my thoughts in bold:

“Shane Victorino is the kind of guy you want on your team…”. This is true if you like players who maintain the league average for OBP and OPS. As a Dodger he is below average in both categories.
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