A Pudge-y Yankee

Two big trades have gone down since last I wrote:

• Just today, the Yankees traded reliever Kyle Farnsworth to the Tigers for Ivan Rodriguez. Rodriguez, 36, is hitting 295/338/417. Short-term, Rodriguez may have been the best solution out there for the Yankees. He certainly better than Paul Lo Duca and Gerald Laird. There may have been other solutions out there to fill the Yankees' needs long-term (Saltalamacchia, Teagarden), but apparently the Yanks are focusing on this year (Rodriguez is a free agent after the season), with the apparent hope that Posada can return to catching early in 2009.
  The Yankees do take a hit in losing Farnsworth. Their middle relief has been an issue this season, and Farnsworth was looking like he could be their key setup man. My guess, though, is that this will intensify the Yankees' efforts to trade for another reliever. I doubt they'll be satisfied by just swapping out Farnsworth for Damaso Marte in the 'pen.
  For the Tigers, this move helps solve their bullpen problems without creating a gaping hole. Todd Jones didn't work out as closer (which I saw coming, even if it came two after I first saw it), and the team has forced Fernando Rodney into the role. Rodney may work out, but it's nice to add Farnsworth.
  There is a concern that the loss of Pudge will hurt the Tigers more than the acquisition of Farnsworth. The hole created by Rodriguez's departure opens the door for Brandon Inge, who's been without a position since the team traded for Miguel Cabrera. But Inge hasn't caught regularly in years, although his offense this year has been roughly as good as Rodriguez's (227/320/438). But the main question here is whether the Tigers still see themselves as contenders. Despite the decimation of their pitching staff, they still have a realistic shot in the AL Central against paper tigers Chicago and Minnesota. But as the season goes on and the team fails to pick up ground, it's looking less and less likely that they can fulfill their potential.
• But the biggest move was the trade that sent Mark Teixeira from Atlanta to Anaheim for Casey Kotchman and pitching prospect Stephen Marek. Teixeira fills a big void in the Angels lineup as the only well-rounded, impact bat on the entire team (Vlad Guerrero usually fills that role, but has lost a step to injury). I thought the Angels were fooling themselves if they thought they could get far in October with this lineup, and apparently, they thought so too. They gave up relatively little for Teixeira, but then the big man is a free agent in the offseason. More importantly, though, is that the Angels now have an exclusive window to negotiate a contract extension that would be a perfect fit for them and "Tex."
  For the Braves, this is official confirmation that their own trade for Teixeira, daring and risky that it was, didn't work out. The Braves gave up a lot (and I do mean a lot) to get Teixiera from the Angels in order to get a slightly better shot at the distant prospect of an NL East crown. I admire Frank Wren for his testicular fortitude, but don't think it was worth the price paid, a price that almost single-handedly gave the Rangers one of baseball's best farm systems. The Braves do get a good first baseman in return in Kotchman, whose greatest feature is that he'll be under the Braves' control for three years, versus just 1/2 for Teixeira. And while Marek does have his warts as a prospect, he does have a live arm and could help the team in the future. Apparently, the Braves just weren't getting many better offers for Teixeira, and considering that they stood to gain nothing but two draft picks otherwise, they did a good job by picking up a mid-level replacement at first base (think of a slightly better Adam LaRoche) and a Double-A pitching prospect with promise.
• Despite the great acrimony and the rantings of Dan Shaughnessy, it looks like Manny Ramirez is staying put. As awful as the situation has become, there's just no feasible trade that works for the Red Sox.
  One rumor does have Manny and cash going to the Marlins for Jeremy Hermida, Josh Willingham, or a pitcher, perhaps. Such a deal would be great for the Sox in the long-term, but if Manny's absence cost them the postseason this year, Red Sox Nation would revolt. And I'm sorry, but I can't picture any player worth more than $5 mil. in a Florida uniform this year, no matter how much he's subsidized.
• There's a rumor on ESPN.com that the Twins are pursuing Rich Aurilia. Unless they're "pursuing" him romantically, I don't see how this makes any sense at all.

I'm sure there will be more to come, as I try to keep up with the comings and goings. For the past few years, the July trade deadline has been fiercely anticlimactic; the last real shocker/blockbuster was the Nomar deal back in 2004. But there have been some big moves and some big names moving around this year, and I'm sure we haven't seen the end of it.

Trades on the Horizon

• The Yankees made a big trade yesterday, acquiring Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte from the Pirates in exchange for minor league outfielder Jose Tabata, and pitching prospects Ross Ohlendorf, Jeff Karstens, and Dan McCutchen.
  This isn't a season-maker for the Yankees, and I'm surprised that so many people are optimistic about this. Marte is a good lefty reliever (which the Yanks needed) and Nady is a good-hitting outfielder (which the Yanks also needed). But neither one is really that great. Nady is having a fantastic year so far, but he's never hit nearly this well in the past, and moving from the NL Central to the AL East should put a damper on his offense. Both men fill legitimate holes in the Yankee roster, but neither man is the impact player the Yankees could really use to make the postseason.
  The Yankees are also rumored to be pursuing Jarrod Washburn, for reasons that are beyond my understanding. Washburn has had a good run of starts recently, but on the year, he's got a 4.75 ERA with just 65 K in 110 IP. He's also nearing his 34th birthday, and he's been like this for a few years. He's a step up from Sidney Ponson, certainly, but that's setting the bar really low. Surely there's somebody better than Washburn out there for the Yanks.
  Some of the appeal may be in that the Yanks wouldn't have to give up much in prospects to get Washburn; if they just agree to pick up the rest of his contract, the Mariners will probably just settle for a B-level guy. But the difference between Washburn and Ponson is not significant enough to bother with, in my opinion, especially if it prevents the Yankees from getting a good pitcher before the deadline.
• Word is that the Yankees have discussed Adam Dunn and Barry Bonds, but neither man is likely to don the pinstripes this year. Dunn's stock is absurdly low among GMs for some reason, and Bonds looks more and more like he might be the victim of collusion. He's cheap and productive and slots in perfectly for the Yanks. His defense isn't as bad as people think, and I think the negative media attention he'd attract has been overstated. Bonds and/or Dunn would be impact players for the Yankees, enough to seriously push them toward Boston and Tampa Bay. If they choose to pass on both men and settle for Xavier Nady, they will likely end up regretting it.
• The Dodgers just acquired Casey Blake from the Indians for minor league catcher Carlos Santana and righty pitcher Jon Meloan. I think this is a bad move for L.A. Blake was overrated and was going to demand more than he was worth in return. Blake's greatest strength is his versatility and his ability to play all four corners while hitting decently. The Dodgers will likely use him at third, but their best option at third is Andy LaRoche, who's already on the team. And the only Dodger outfielder that Blake can safely out-perform is Juan Pierre, and that's not saying much. Again, the Dodger's baseball ops people, with extensive meddling from above and combative divisions within, has done a poor job, acquiring an overrated veteran and giving up two key young prospects. Jon Meloan has notched 335 strikeouts in 262.2 minor league innings. He's a big, scary right-handed reliever, and you can never have too many of those. Meloan was excellent every year in the minors before this one; his control has suffered, and his 60 walks allowed have swelled his ERA to 4.97 (albeit in a hitter's park). But giving up on Meloan now is fool-hardy. The Dodgers are looking at trading for guys like Huston Street, when they've got good relievers in their own system. Not only that, but if they were going to trade Meloan, they shouldn't have done it in the middle of a bad season and should have gotten more in return for it. The Dodgers also gave up Santana, who's considered to be a good prospect as well. Jayson Stark reports that this may be because the Indians sent along $2 million cash to pay Blake's contract. Are the Dodgers having cash flow problems, Stark wonders?
  A lot has been said in recent weeks about the terrible divisions in the Dodger front office that has kept them from making any unified decisions about what is best for the team.
• The Indians made an odd move, trading for Cardinals pitcher Anthony Reyes for a minor league pitcher. The Indians must be thinking about next year, with the hope that they can harness his raw talent where the Cardinals could not. It's buying low, and it's not bad for a team that's going to need more starting pitching depth. It also gives them the chance to start evaluating and working with Reyes this year, when there's nothing at stake, rather than launching the experience in 2009 when they'll be hoping to contend.
• Manny Ramirez has raised the hackles of the mainstream media again. My prediction? Manny's not going anywhere. Until after the season, when he'll be gone.
• With the Yankees getting Nady, the Mets and Diamondbacks are now the two main contenders desperately in need of an impact bat. Jason Bay appears to be staying in Pittsburgh, but several other names have popped up in conversation. Randy Winn is one of the few Giants making big bucks, and he could fit in as a center/right fielder with some pop. A big question is money, as Winn is owed about $8 million next season. Raul Ibanez's name has come up recently as well. Ibanez makes some sense. He's not too expensive and wouldn't cost a great deal. But he's just an average-to-fair offensive left fielder, not at all the difference-maker that the Mets and especially the Diamondbacks could use. Again, I say: Barry Bonds is just sitting there.
• A couple of teams are on the fence as to whether they should buy or sell. The team in the toughest position is probably Atlanta. The Braves have underperformed in relation to their talent this year and are capable of making a run. But there are three teams in front of them, and both the Phillies and Mets look to be fortifying themselves for a stretch run. The Braves could make a serious run by doing some buying, but they may be better served by shopping around Mark Teixeira just to see if they can get a good deal.
• A.J. Burnett is still a possibility for teams that need a starter, but Burnett has an opt-out clause in his contract after this season. And considering his track record, there's no need to give up a lot to get him, given his inconsistency.
• The ESPN.com Rumor Central claims that the Rockies are interested in Bronson Arroyo. I have no idea why.
• The latest on Jorge Posada is that he's going to try and continue this season, but the damage to his throwing arm means he's done as a catcher, at least for this season. That helps solve one problem for New York (the 1B/DH dilemma), but it creates a gaping hole behind the plate. The Yankees are looking for catching, but that's always difficult, and you end up looking at guys like Paul Lo Duca and Rod Barajas.
• The Astros may want to add more pitching via trade. Does Ed Wade realize that he's the new Dave Littlefield? Someone should break it to him. Maybe he can trade for Vicente Padilla, so he can acquire more players he remembers from his time in Philadelphia. And hey, you might as well call up Mike Schmidt and Jim Bunning to see how they feel.
• Nationals GM Jim Bowden told reporters that he is going to non-tender injured closer Chad Cordero after the season. Jim, buddy -- you don't have to tell people these things! Wait until the time comes, and then make the decision. What the hell good does it do you to telegraph your decisions months in advance? I give up.
• The Angels, despite the strong need for a power bat, are likely to stay put. That's what the Angels usually did under Bill Stoneman, and Tony Reagins isn't doing anything differently. Of course, you could argue that the Angels' attempts to stand pat and go with what they have hasn't gotten them very far. They've got a great development system, and if they could actually supplement it with some trades or even a couple more free agents, they might win another World Series. Instead, they're just lucky to be in the game's only 4-team division.

A couple more notes, unrelated to the trade deadline:

• I saw these articles online recently and kept meaning to link to them here but kept forgetting. This is an excellent piece that says a whole lot of things that needed to be said. Especially in New York. And this one is an excellent look at the double standard applied to baseball and football in our society.
• The MLB has recently released a collection of DVDs featuring "Vintage World Series Footage" of different franchises. It's a great idea, and I've got them all in my Netflix queue. The first one I got was the Detroit Tigers, and it was pretty good. There's a great wealth of things they could have included as special features, but incredibly, the DVD has no special features. All you get are recaps of the 1945, 1968, and 1984 World Series, which are admittedly quite fascinating.
  But I noticed something that really unsettled me. In the 1968 recap, narrator Curt Gowdy was introducing some of the key members of the Tigers team that year. When he introduced Willie Horton, he referred to him as the team's "strongboy." That struck me right off as racist. Have you ever heard the term "strongboy?" No. The term is "strongman." And I don't believe it's a coincidence that Curt Gowdy, a very well-spoken man, would choose to depart from the phrase everyone knows and make up one that's never existed before. Unless, of course, he was thinking of Horton's race. I don't mean it was necessarily derogatory; but if you generally refer to a black man as "boy," that's likely to come out in everyday conversation. The only other explanation is that Gowdy misspoke in a manner that makes no sense, making up a word that doesn't exist while coincidentally referring to a black man.
  You learn a lot about the times when you watch these old films, produced during the period. Not all of it is pleasant.

Oh my blog

It’s been a few weeks now since this episode of the HBO series Costas Now, where Buzz Bissinger verbally assaulted internet blogger Will Leitch, former editor of the popular blog Deadspin. Bissinger released all of his pent-up anger about the new internet media, the death of newspapers and the rise of blogs and spat it at Leitch in an incredibly crass and profane way.
This issue has been kicking around my head ever since then, and I was finally able to watch the entire (uncensored) segment just yesterday. This segment had a polarizing effect on the different segments of the sports media. The online bloggers generally excoriated Bissinger for his outburst. They claimed that it was just more evidence of the stodginess of the old guard, who couldn’t handle change or see their own power threatened. Many outspoken members of the “old guard” defended Bissinger, if not his outburst, agreeing with many of the points raised on the show about the generally hateful tone of blogs and their harmful effect on the already slumping newspaper industry.
So after watching the video, I feel like I need to make some response.

First, I’d like to put my own position on blogs out there. Since I write in my own online blog (obscure though it may be), I do have some stake in the matter. I’ve never really considered my blog to be journalism, since it mainly consists of commentary rather than the reporting of news. I’m not a journalist and have no pretensions of being such. My journalistic experience consists of one year of writing for my high school newspaper. This does not qualify me to be a journalist, and I neither desire nor expect my writing to replace that of a qualified journalist.
I do, however, consider myself to be a qualified writer. Granted, there aren’t many qualifications for writing¸ per se, but all I can say is that I’ve written a lot before, with some success, and although my professional writing consists mainly of a few published Letters to the Editor, I think I am able to communicate effectively through my work.

Now, to answer the charges of Bissinger (and others) against online sports media. Bob Costas expressed concern (while Bissinger was being sedated) about the often hateful and personal tone of online media. He was well-armed with quotes from Leitch’s own Deadspin site, although to be fair, none of it was written by Leitch himself, and so they were asking him to defend the words of others. Not only that, but most of the vitriolic comments cited by Costas and Bissinger were made by the comments of random web members, not the actual words of the blog author. Leitch argued, with some success, that it is essentially dishonest to exercise great censorship over even vulgar comments, since this reflects exactly what the average sports fan is thinking, feeling and saying. He felt that Bissinger and Costas were taking the site far too seriously by taking such personal affront at what amounts to the profane ramblings of a random dunderhead.
On this point, I am somewhat in agreement with Leitch; there is a role to be played by an online site that allows fans to say what they think, even if it’s an emotional, vitriolic outburst. That reflects the honest reaction of sports fans and is one of the things the internet was created for.
But that speaks in generalities. That argument would be valid if Deadspin existed in a vacuum, rather than as one of many similar blogs with a growing influence over the substance of sports commentary, both inside and outside the media. I think that Costas’ concern about the hateful tone of blogs is valid; in the real world, the vitriolic comments, -- often containing obscene and personal attacks on sports figures – are becoming more dominant than whatever journalism or story inspired them. There’s an old saying -- I forget what it says exactly -- but it’s something to the effect that the rumor goes around the world twice while the truth is still getting out of bed. And while Leitch and Deadspin won’t give overt support to the statements on their site, the fact that they are there at all and exist on a popular and influential site does have an effect. Leitch (and his colleagues) can cite freedom of speech and claim that they’re just comments that they have no control over, but the truth is that because the comments exist (and are even the norm) at such a website as Deadspin gives them a tacit stamp of approval. Leitch may claim that it’s not his fault that people take his work more seriously than real journalism, but that’s a cop-out. Human beings have an enormous capacity for stupidity and illogical decision-making, and if Leitch ignores this reality, it is a willful ignorance that perpetuates the stupidity.
Nobody really likes the fact that gossip and rumor are replacing hard news in this world. It’s happening faster than ever, and not just in sports – in politics, world affairs, and of course the entertainment industry. The defense often taken by the gossip- and rumor-mongers is that they’re just giving the people what they want. That’s perfectly true, but I don’t consider it a valid defense. Drug dealers can make the same argument, but it doesn’t excuse them from taking responsibility for their actions, popular though they may be in certain circles.
But that doesn’t mean that we as a people don’t share equal responsibility for these developments, if not perhaps more. My personal feeling is that the distributors and consumers of pseudo-news share an equal amount of responsibility for the degeneration of public discourse in this country. Everyone can argue that it’s not a big deal, and if we all lived in a vacuum, then it wouldn’t be. But this is the real world, and it is a big deal, as anyone following the A-Rod/Madonna controversy or the Jesse Jackson hoopla can attest. And no one ends up actually taking responsibility, because the distributors and consumers keep throwing the hot potato back to the other party, and it never actually lands. It’s a vicious cycle of blame that never settles on the people who have earned it, except in a select few cases.
So while I hated and despised Bissinger’s vicious rant and disagree with some of the claims made by Costas, I believe that their argument is valid, and is too easily dismissed by those of us who aren’t directly affected by these developments.

Having said that . . .

I also firmly believe that people like Buzz Bissinger and (especially) Murray Chass are disgruntled old men who are – in many cases – just as ignorant and vitriolic as their enemies. If you’ve ever been subjected to a Murray Chass rant against statistics and sabermetrics, you could be forgiven if you confused him with a 17th-century Catholic bishop railing against Galileo, Copernicus, and their goddamn heliocentric ideas. In the continuing fight over Moneyball (which exists only in the minds of Chass and a few others), the supposedly “journalistic” old media have been just as angry, profane, and personal as anyone else in their attacks against modernism in baseball and other sports.
Leitch was not incredibly glib and effective in his arguments (understandably so, under the circumstances), but he did make the point that the comments made by Bissinger have been made against every development in new media and will be made again when the next new media development comes along. He’s exactly right, and putting this argument in a historical context really undermines the arguments of the “old guard.”
Go back and read the comments made against television by those inside baseball. Television was considered to be the killer of “real” baseball, not only in a business of baseball sense, but as a killer of newspapers. And television did kill newspapers. Television and radio combined wiped out a huge number of local and regional newspapers across the country. Go back and look at all the daily newspapers that existed in New York in the days before radio. It’s amazing! And now, there are basically three daily newspapers serving the five boroughs, despite the fact that the population has grown considerably since the advent of radio. Those old newspapers weren’t killed by the internet; they were killed by radio and TV. I don’t hear Bissinger or Chass complaining about them.
It’s also because people simply can’t see the forest for the trees. People like Bissinger (I hate to pick on him, because he’s not alone) have such a huge personal stake in this matter that they can’t put it in context. We shouldn’t expect them to be able to put things in a broader perspective or to approach this problem from a historical standpoint. Blogs can be harmful, as I’ve said before, but singling them out (and making personal attacks on Will Leitch) is not only revolting, but ignorant.
Blogs didn’t invent hateful commentary; Bissinger and Costas are deluding themselves if they don’t see hateful, ad hominem attacks in newspapers across the country. Talk radio is just as hateful as the internet and arguably more influential. In defending the old sports media, people like Costas will mention great sports journalists, or columnists like Rick Reilly, who are well-respected and rarely make personal attacks.
But I’d argue that Costas is arguing the exception rather than the rule in newspaper journalism. He makes the point that hateful vitriol is not the exception, but rather the rule on the internet. He is correct. But I would argue that a similar remark could be made about established sports journalists. For every Peter Gammons, there are 100 morons who publicly string up the local coach on the sports page every week. Look at the coverage of college football or college basketball in local and regional newspapers across this country, and then tell me that it’s civil, high-minded, and impersonal. And yes, those guys are just the scuzzy majority, but if you admit that, then it undermines your main argument against the scuzzy online majority.

Another issue raised by Costas and Bissinger is the internet’s total disregard (and open contempt) for the established media and their figureheads. Again, once you put this in a historical context, it’s a lot harder to get worked up about. What do young people do? What have young people, and young movements, done throughout history? What have they done in art, literature, politics, and media? They rebel! Of course they rebel! Can anyone possibly be surprised that the younger generation is contemptuous of their elders? True authors and literary figures once scorned those who wrote for newspapers and periodicals, and often for very good reason. Their critics responded that they were stodgy, old-fashioned, and stuck in the old ways. They were often correct in that assessment. And so the process has gone on, with every evolution in literature and media.
I’m not well-educated in art history, but it seems to me that every art movement for the past 500 years has been a direct reaction against the art movement that came before it. I am well-educated in theatre history, and the same thing is true there. Those that supported the modernism of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Strindberg were once considered to be crazy supporters of inappropriate subject matter. Those same modernists objected to the methods of existential, surrealistic, and absurdist theatre. And the same people who were taking off their clothes and chanting in the 60’s are today’s heads of theatre departments across the nation, operating with budgets in the tens of thousands of dollars and putting on productions of Shakespeare and Oklahoma! while worrying about “these kids today.” The rebels of yesterday become the comfortable bourgeoisie of today.
That doesn’t mean that I defend someone who goes online and tells Rick Reilly, Bob Costas, and Buster Olney to go f*** themselves. But we shouldn’t be overly concerned about young people disrespecting their elders. Students for centuries have told William Shakespeare to go f*** himself, but he hasn’t gone away. Modern art students may be terribly bored by Giotto’s paintings from the life of Jesus, but they haven’t been taken down from the museum walls yet. It may be a vast generalization, but I believe that what is good will last and what is faulty will not. We have to strive to preserve the good; that is certainly true. But we shouldn’t panic and we certainly shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.

The show’s argument then went from disrespect of established media to a debate over the importance of “access.” Bissinger and Costas argued strongly in favor of an involved participant to be a reliable reporter of those facts. On the other hand, a widely-quoted commentator on Deadspin said that “I don’t need to see Rich Garces’ tits” to discuss his qualities as a pitcher. Costas made the point that people with access are indispensable as commentators, whereas Deadspin readers regularly decry the prejudice and complacency that access breeds. Costas cited Woodward and Bernstein as people who had access to Watergate and provided a powerful service to the country.
Here I take strong exception with Costas, because he’s misinterpreting history. One of the main points of Watergate was that Woodward and Bernstein were outsiders. They were not national reporters covering the Nixon administration at the Washington Post. They were assigned to the city desk, which was basically the Post’s B-team. Costas’ misconception is fundamental, because Woodward and Bernstein were outsiders who forced their way into the story. The very essence of the Watergate story was that all of the political reporters and insiders who did have access were not pursuing the story. It took a couple of no-name jerks horning their way in on a story that was outside their experience to thoroughly embarass an entire media establishment that had failed in its fundamental duty to inform the American people.
Costas inadvertently referenced an era whose chief historical lesson directly contradicts the point he was making. It took outsiders, subversives, and hoodlums like Woodward & Bernstein, Daniel Ellsberg, and Sy Hersh to report the truth of the Vietnam War and the illegal and immoral government operations of the 60’s and 70’s. When Sy Hersh broke the My Lai story, he was bitterly chastised for doing so, not because it was inaccurate, but because the media wasn’t supposed to report things like that. It was considered unpatriotic to report on American atrocities during wartime, and even those “insiders” who didn’t think it was unpatrotic at least thought it was unseemly. It also embarassed the “insider” media establishment that stories like this were happening, they knew about it, and did nothing. There were bound to be repercussions when the American people learned they weren’t getting the full story from the people they trusted; those who had access to the facts and the perpetrators of such acts. When Walter Cronkite called Vietnam a “stalemate,” and when Edward R. Murrow took on McCarthyism, they were the exceptions, and that’s why they’re remembered.
Although events as important as war and death rarely occur in baseball, there is a direct parallel here. Those with “access” can provide us invaluable and otherwise inaccessible information, but they are also very often complacent in their power when it comes to challenging the norms and pursuing the truth. Even worse, they are quite often complicit in hiding the truth from their readers and supporting the establishment. I’m sure Bob Costas and other journalists are familiar with the concept of “conflict of interest,” but I doubt they would see how much it applies to their own sphere of influence. Sports journalists are wedded to the sports themselves, and therefore have a powerful vested interest in not threatening the powers that be.
On the micro level, sports journalists are beholden to sports teams and players. They can ask tough questions and pursue stories, but they have to stay within fair boundaries. Otherwise, they can be denied perks such as the press box that “insiders” enjoy as well as the basic access to the players themselves, by revoking a press pass or simply ignoring them. Subconsciously, every journalist knows that the teams and players have the power to deprive them of their livelihood. Few sports journalists are bigger than the teams they cover, and thus able to report the truth as is without being concerned about the consequences. It’s a generalization, but your average beat reporter must know on some level where his bread is buttered. So they’ll keep quiet -- just like the political insiders were willing to keep quiet about My Lai and the Pentagon Papers -- to retain their access.
On the macro level, sports journalism simply wouldn’t exist without sports themselves. The journalists and their employers are often business partners of the organizations they are expected to cover without bias. Buzz Bissinger attacked Will Leitch for being open about his biases and rooting interests, specifically, that he was a Cardinals fan. Leitch argued that pretending you have no biases is intelectually dishonest. It was by far the most cogent and important argument he was able to make. Bissinger took this as a sign that Leitch wasn’t a real “journalist,” because real journalists have to be unbiased.
But they’re not unbiased. And surely Buzz Bissinger doesn’t expect me to believe that they are. This self-important image of the “unbiased observer” does a direct disservice to readers. Historian Howard Zinn made a similar comment about history; everyone is biased, and the sooner we admit that and get on with it, the more honest our discourse will be. Everyone has values, and it will inevitably affect the way they report history, or sports. The most basic bias, according to Zinn, is simply deciding what is and is not worth writing about. Every historian and every journalist makes this decision, and it is a decision born out of bias. It subconsciously tells the reader what is news and what is not news. It’s a fallacy to expect any human to be unbiased, and for Bissinger to aspire to such pretension speaks strongly against him.
Even worse than simple complacency, though, is when media insiders are complicit in hiding or refusing to reveal important truths to the public. Any study of baseball journalism throughout history would reveal that, for the most part, “inside” journalists were complicit in protecting the interests of organized sports, especially where it affected their self-interest in covering a particular sport or team. Outright lies and violations of the ethics of journalism were the norm throughout baseball history, perpetrated even by some of the most respected and venerated of sportswriters. The truth of the reserve clause, the ruthless economic self-interest of owners, the unethical or illegal practices of specific teams, all went unreported for the most part when they occurred. Insiders either consciously protected the interests of “their” sport, or reluctantly decided to prize their baseball “patriotism” over truths that may harm the game’s owners and executives.
Do I have any evidence of complicity? Read about any conflict between the Lords of Baseball (so named by John Helyar in his excellent book, Lords of the Realm) and their enemies, mostly players, sometimes local or government officials, or even the fans themselves. Close examination will usually reveal a bias in favor of the Lords, even if it meant violating journalistic integrity by spreading gossip and making ad hominem attacks aginst the “enemy” or directly conspiring with the Lords themselves. Look at the vast majority of mainstream coverage during the early years of the player’s union and the first strikes. Not only did most insiders (especially the older ones) support organized baseball, but they did so with arguments that were riddled with bias, scare-mongering, rumor-mongering, ad hominem attacks, and vitriol directed towards the key perpetrators. Only in recent years has opinion split more towards support for the union. In the 1994 strike, for example, the union and the Lords seemed to take equal blame for bringing about the work stoppage.
And what about the greatest crime of all in baseball, the color line that supposedly didn’t exist before 1946? Insiders of the time were criminally silent, if not complicit, on the subject. It was almost always African-American journalists, or subversive white journalists (such as Communists) who reported on segregation and applied the pressure for integration. They found few supporters among media insiders. Now some may argue that those insiders were simply a product of their time. That’s certainly true, but doesn’t that mean that they possessed the biases and prejudices of their time? And if that’s true, isn’t it likely that this generation’s sportswriters are a product of their time, with biases and prejudices that we may not see for another generation?

The Bissinger-Leitch argument ignited some heated arguments within the sports media, precisely because it dug into all of the meaty and controversial issues I’ve discussed here. The argument isn’t likely to die down anytime soon. And the main reason for that may be that both sides are a little bit right and a little bit wrong. But everyone recognizes the importance of this issue. Even if some of us get a little overexcited about it.

AFTERWORD

I put a lot into that entry, so much so that I need to respond to my “response” to the debate. The first point I want to mention is about my writing. I don’t want to come off as self-congratulatory when I call myself a good writer. I meant that I feel like I’m a good writer compared to the average person, or perhaps even compared to the average blogger. Not compared to the average famous literary figure. I’m a HUGE stickler for spelling, and while my grammar isn’t perfect, I try to avoid elementary mistakes. My biggest problem, I think, is that I construct sentences or paragraphs that are too complex or difficult to understand. I don’t always achieve the clarity I would like in communicating my thoughts to others in the form of words. I try to say too much at once and sometimes fail to communicate as a result.
I do not edit my blogs as vigorously as I would like and certainly not as vigorously as I’ve edited other things that I write. Part of this I don’t mind; this is a blog, and is meant more to be a running commentary than a proper essay or treatise. I always re-read my entries before I post them, but that’s a poor time to thoroughly edit. Everything’s so fresh in your mind that you’re just re-thinking the entry rather than actually seeing the words. In the scheme of things, it’s probably not a big deal. But I do feel vulnerable if I criticize someone for poor writing or poor communication, when I know that I’ve got some problems and typos in my own entries that I just never noticed. I can look at the word “though” a million times and see “thought,” because I know what I meant when I wrote it.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I am sometimes guilty of slight personal attacks. Granted, it’s nothing like what’s on Deadspin. After I watched the HBO segment, I went to the website (which I’d heard of, but never seen) and looked at some of the articles. Wow. It’s hard to defend the site as something to be taken seriously. But then the same could be said of People magazine.
I try to approach my subjects honestly, and so when I feel strongly about something, I don’t want to censor myself if I have a strong emotion. If I am tempted to drop an f-bomb, I usually don’t, but sometimes I just think it’s necessary to communicate the gravity of my emotion. And I do use asterisks – sometimes.
No, what I worry about is my characterization of some people in the game. I try not to brand people as “stupid,” or use other adjectives to describe them personally, rather than to describe their decisions or their attitudes. But I don’t always hold to that. Bob Costas made the point on the show that with the anonymity of the internet, it’s easier to say things online that we would never say to someone in person. That’s true, and it’s tempting to take advantage of the distance (and in my case, obscurity) of the internet to say reckless things about someone.
If I met Jim Bowden in person, I wouldn’t call him a bonehead. But I think that I may have used that term in the past. I know I’ve called some of his trades bone-headed, which is still pretty strong, but isn’t a personal attack on him. I try to make that distinction, even though it’s tempting to vent if you feel strongly about something.
No one in baseball has ever hurt me personally, although I will at times speak out against their personal actions, if they are baseball-related and egregious enough to merit it. The example that comes to mind is Bill Bavasi’s recent request that his players stand by their locker and withstand public humiliation from the press. I felt strongly that this was a terrible and irresponsible thing to do and further disdained it since it seemed an obvious ploy by Bavasi to save his own job, which he has since lost. I said it in the article, and I’ll say it again; I don’t know Bill Bavasi, and he’s never hurt me. But I strongly condemn what he did, and I did so in some strong language there in the article. I expressed nothing but relief when he lost his job, but it’s not like I was out there starting the “FireBillBavasi.com” website.
Walking the line of both civility and honesty is difficult, but I try. And even if I fail, I do try to learn from my shortcomings and improve upon them. And without sounding too snide, that’s a lot more than most anonymous bloggers will do.

More Baseball Books

An update on the baseball books I've read since my last entry on the subject.

Rickey & Robinson by Harvey Frommer
Frommer's book is a great look at the relationship that erased the color line in major league baseball. It's an excellent introduction to the subject, and a good short biography of each man as it relates to their combined efforts in the game.

The Bill James Gold Mine 2008 by Bill James
I was looking forward to this book, hoping it would at be, at least to some extent, a throwback to the Baseball Abstracts. Instead, it's a bland collection of numbers that you can mainly find in other places, with very little in the way of original analysis or insight. There might be a few shiny nuggets in the book, but it's no gold mine.

The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers by Bill James
This was an essential read, as it's really the only book that tries to examine the role of a manager in terms of what he does, rather than who he is. It goes beyond wins and losses to give us a good idea of what each manager was like, in terms of strategy and tactics, as well as the background on their playing and/or coaching career, and what their influences were. The book is arranged in chronological order, so that you can see the evolution of the role of the manager, as well as the changing on-field tactics. Required reading.

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends by Rob Neyer
Neyer is probably my favorite baseball writer, but it's get drawn into this book. Neyer discusses so many legends (or more accurately, old baseball stories) that it gets monotonous after a while, especially since his methodology is almost exactly the same for each story. He checks Retrosheet and then tries to narrow the story down to a certain time when it could conceivably have happened. This takes up most of each entry.
Fact-checking is necessary, especially for this book, but it's not neccessary to take the reader along for dozens and dozens of fact-checking exercises. I'd have been far more interested in getting more background on the story and the storyteller, as well as some insight into why some false legends spring up.
The most notable part of the book is probably Bill James' introduction. James decries the fact that the great storytelling in baseball has been almost entirely replaced by numbers and a dedication to accuracy. That's not to say that accuracy isn't important; but rather that it's fun to have these legends, even if we all know they're not true. Baseball journalism has changed, which is good for the most part, but the mantle of baseball storytelling hasn't been picked up by anyone else.

Cobb by Al Stump
I agree with Roger Kahn's blurb, that this is the most powerful baseball biography I've ever read. Stump's experiences with Cobb provide an uncommonly close relationship between biographer and subject, which is made even better by Stump's great insight and storytelling skill. Stump does a pretty good job of separating Cobb's lies from the truth and appears to have done his homework in verifying the basic facts as best he could.
But the most captivating feature of the book is the character of Ty Cobb. Cobb is far more fascinating than any number of fictional creations, which makes it all the more impossible to believe that he actually existed. I came into this book with a pretty dim vision of Ty Cobb, yet somehow I left with an even dimmer vision.
Note: This book was made into the 1994 film written and directed by Ron Shelton, of Bull Durham fame. Unlike the rest of the baseball universe, I didn't much care for Bull Durham. And I wasn't a big fan of Cobb, with Tommy Lee Jones playing the title role. The main problem with putting Ty Cobb on film is keeping the audience engaged despite having to watch an aging, despicable tyrant for two hours straight. The film focuses on Stump's time spent with Cobb, which is fascinating, but there's not enough conflict or really any sort of charm to keep us watching, even though Jones and Robert Wuhl (as Stump) do a good job.
Another problem is that Tommy Lee Jones is just too charming to play Ty Cobb. Yes, he's believable as a rough-hewn son of a bitch, but he's far too comfortable with himself, even though he is belligerent. The real Cobb was basically impossible to like or to get along with, and while he could be charming, most of that was gone by age 70. It's hard to describe, but Jones has a certain ease as an actor that just doesn't translate to Cobb. The only thing Cobb did easily was play baseball, and even that wasn't without its own trauma. I personally think a great choice for Cobb would be Chris Cooper -- who appeared as Cobb in Lee Blessing's play of the same name -- who can be a despicable, paranoid and obnoxious asshole and still be interesting and captivating.
But that's just my two cents. Rob Neyer's Legends book includes a hilarious anecdote from the filming of Cobb, in particular the scene where Roger Clemens, as Ed Walsh, faces off against Jones/Cobb.

The Black Prince of Baseball: Hal Chase and the Mythology of the Game by Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella
This is an excellent biography of Chase that also serves as an excellent snapshot of baseball from the early 20th century through the Black Sox scandal. The essential message of the book was that while Chase most certainly bet on baseball, he by no means alone among baseball players, and his actions were just a reflection of a plethora of moral issues facing the game in his day.

There are two other books about which I have more to say. I'll start with the book I just finished, Built to Win: Inside Stories and Leadership Strategies from Baseball's Winningest GM by John Schuerholz with Larry Guest.
Schuerholz's book isn't great, but it's worth reading if you want an insider's view into a GM's life, or that of the Braves and Royals this past 25 years. As for the "leadership" mentioned in the subtitle, Schuerholz's book is also intended as a leadership primer for managers and executives. I can say that this portion of the book is incredibly dull, but then I find all manager-speak dull and lifeless. I'm a Dilbert fan, so it's hard for me to take this stuff seriously.
Schuerholz treats all of his subjects will incredible class and a fair amount of candor. It's very difficult not to believe his version of events, as they are presented even-handedly, usually without a great deal of blame being thrown about, and with him usually accepting some responsibility. Because of the large amount of purely "leadership" material, we don't get a comprehensive view of Schuerholz's baseball career, which would have been a much better story for my tastes. He does discuss his entry into the baseball world as a low-paid secretary with the Baltimore Orioles and discusses some issues from his years in Kansas City. But most of the book is about the Braves, and his work alongside team executives Stan Kasten and Terry McGuirk.
As for the baseball stories, there are many fascinating ones. I'll begin from the beginning . . .

Barry Bonds is traded to the Atlanta Braves
Schuerholz (and Guest) do an excellent job of hooking the reader's attention, starting the book with the tale of the Braves' trade with Pittsburgh to acquire Barry Bonds in 1992. Not only did the Braves and Pirates discuss the deal, the deal was done -- according to Schuerholz. He and Pirates GM Ted Simmons had agreed on the deal over the phone, which is considered pretty sacred among GMs.
The Pirates, strapped for cash, wanted to get something in exchange for Bonds, who was eligible for free agency after the 1992 season and was almost certainly going to be leaving Pittsburgh. With that in mind, and considering Bonds' salary, the Pirates looked for a deal and got one with the Braves: Bonds to the Braves in exchange for relief pitcher Alejandro Pena, Keith Mitchell, and a player to be named later.
Hindsight may be 20/20, but that would surely have gone done in infamy as one of the worst trades of all-time. Now, it wasn't as bad as it looks; remember, the Pirates were only trading away one year of Barry Bonds. And Keith Mitchell was a pretty good-looking outfield prospect; he was just 22 years old, coming off a season where he started in Double-A and hit his way to the majors (318/392/409 in 48 games). He didn't have much (if any) power, but no one knew then that his major league career would be so disappointing (260/353/380 in 4 seasons).
But it's still hard to understand why the Pirates were making this trade. They already had a very good closer, Bill Landrum, who had done a fine job for them from 1989-1991. But the team released the 33-year old Landrum at the end of Spring Training, perhaps because he was due to make nearly $1 million that year (he landed with the Expos but struggled). But age couldn't have been an issue, since Pena was also going to be 33 in '92, and Pena ended up slumping that season as well.
But the real reason the Pirates shouldn't have traded Bonds is that they were coming off back-to-back division titles, and without Bonds, it was very unlikely that they would repeat. As it was, the Pirates won the NL East in 1992 by 9 games. Without Bonds, they likely wouldn't have done it; Bonds was in the middle of a banner year. Baseball Prospectus credits him with 14.6 WARP, or about 14 and a half wins above what a replacement-level player would have done. Even if they were going to lose him to free agency (which they did), why not try to win while he was still there? They were still competitive, of course, making it back to the NLCS (where the lost again). Not only that, but the team that had defeated the Pirates in the NLCS in '91 (and would again in '92) was the Braves! Their erstwhile trading partners! How would that have played in Pittsburgh?
As it turned out, it played pretty poorly. Upon hearing of the trade, manager Jim Leyland (according to Schuerholz) stormed into the office of team president Cal Barger and raised hell over the Bonds trade. Also, the morning of the trade announcement, a Pittsburgh paper had run an article criticizing the team for cutting payroll. What would the papers (and the fans) say after this?
Barger and the Pirates didn't want to find out. They had Simmons call Schuerholz back and call the deal off, hours before the press conference that would have introduced Barry Bonds as a member of the Atlanta Braves. Schuerholz was stunned that Simmons would go back on his word and place the Braves in such an awkward position, but his guess was that the decision was made above him. Schuerholz didn't have any hard feelings for Simmons, and uses the story to illustrate how lucky he's been during his Atlanta tenure to have an ownership that didn't undercut his authority.
So we're left to wonder what would have happened if Bonds had become a Brave. Maybe they would have won the '92 NLCS against the Phillies, and even the World Series against Toronto.
But there's one important thing that wouldn't have happened, if the Braves had traded for Bonds and signed him to a contract extension: they wouldn't have been able to afford Greg Maddux, who would be a free agent after the '92 season. So maybe it all worked it, anyhow.

Bo Jackson
Schuerholz reiterates the fallacy that Bo Jackson would have been a historic baseball player if it weren't for his hip injury playing football. The problem was that Bo was not even a very good baseball player in the years before the injury. Bo could hit home runs like nobody's business, but that was the only good thing he did at the plate. He hit .235 in his first full season, and his best batting average with the Royals was .272 in 1990. His OBP was below .300 his first three seasons in the majors, with his best mark (.342) again coming in 1990. And I should also mention that he struck at least 120 times in each of his first four seasons, topping out at 172 in just 135 games in 1989 (against 39 walks).
Bo was basically an infinitely more athletic version of Dave Kingman. That's not a bad thing, and it can certainly be valuable on the baseball field, but Schuerholz has made the same mistake everyone else made about Bo: they saw an excellent athlete first and foremost, never bothering to notice that he never came close to becoming an excellent baseball player. You could perhaps chalk this up to Schuerholz's old-school scouting philosophy, in which great athletics skills are targeted, sometimes without regard for actual baseball skills. Great athletes often become great baseball players. But it doesn't happen as much as you'd think, and it appears to be a blind spot for Schuerholz, as well as most of his generation in the scouting/baseball ops world. Which brings us to . . .

Moneyball
Schuerholz hates Moneyball as well as everything it stands for. He does not hate Billy Beane, whom he respects and mentions as a favorite trading partner. But he hates Moneyball and anyone associated with it, which means that the rest of the book is full of shots at stat-heads and what he thinks we sabermetricians are like. (There are numerous anecdotes praising the human qualities of his employees, and he invariably ends them with some remark like, "Let's see a computer do that!" or "And we did it without calculators."
The trouble with Schuerholz is that, like nearly everyone else on the face of the planet, he completely misinterprets Moneyball, which is embarassingly obvious from his first remark to his last. He sees Moneyball as an anti-scout, anti-human tract praising on-base percentage and mathematics and discounting any human element in the game or any concept of team chemistry.
That's a clear bastardization of Moneyball. The book does have its faults, but if Schuerholz would just read the darn thing (he never says whether he has or hasn't done so), he'd realize that what the book is really about is finding undervalued ideas and players and using them to win. The book doesn't praise OBP as the be-all, end-all of statistics, but rather as a tremendously undervalued stat. Ironically, the publication of Moneyball has essentially changed this, as OBP is now correctly valued, if not a bit overvalued.
The book exposes the flaws of the traditional major league scouting system, which was biased toward raw athletes (remember Bo Jackson?) and placed more emphasis on character and "intangibles" than on true baseball skills. Even though the book takes a lot of shots at scouts, it is not an anti-scouting book. It rather suggests that the first-hand observations of scouts should be weighed against statistics and models for projected performance. The A's didn't fire their scouts and replace them with computers. And yet everyone (including Schuerholz) seems to think that's exactly what Michael Lewis, Billy Beane, and every sabermetrician wants to do. He couldn't be more wrong, and his gross misunderstanding of the attitudes of a growing number of passionate baseball fans is perhaps the biggest flaw in his thinking illustrated throughout the entire book.
Schuerholz should also take note of all the research that's been done since Moneyball. It supports the theory that better athletes are more likely to be better baseball players. First-hand scouting is necessary, and no serious sabermetrician would argue otherwise. Statistics alone can be misleading, and we in the stat world have never disputed that. Context is just as important as raw numbers, so none of us want our favorite team to conduct their entire draft via a computer algorithm (despite Schuerholz's thoughts to the contrary).
Schuerholz and Guest should have stopped to a) check their facts, since their hilarious misinterpretation of the book that they discuss for an entire chapter hurts their credibility, b) consider the impact their bad-mouthing would have on those of us in the sabermetric community who would otherwise want to read this book, and c) just talk to some of the leading lights of the sabermetric community, so you can actually speak from an informed standpoint. This chapter (and the snide remarks referencing it throughout the book) are the book's weakest point, even weaker than the generic management platitudes that plague the book.

Tom Glavine leaves to join the Mets
This section of the book was actually the most contentious when it was released, with Tom Glavine taking exception to Schuerholz's depiction of his exit from the team to join the Mets as a free agent. Unfortunately, Schuerholz seems to be firmly in control of the facts and also manages to elicit them without taking personal shots at Glavine. Unless Glavine disputes the actual facts, as Schuerholz recounts them, then the book is basically accurate, and readers will likely lose some respect for Glavine.
After the 2002 season, Glavine was eligible for free agency. He was negotiating a new contract with the Braves, and the sticking point was that the Braves were offering a 3-year deal with one option year, whereas Glavine wanted 4 years guaranteed. Schuerholz balked at the fourth guaranteed year; Glavine was still a fine pitcher, but he would also be turning 37 before the 2003 season. Schuerholz didn't want to take such an expensive risk on a pitcher, even a very good one, in his age 40 season. Schuerholz tried to entice Glavine by calling the option year an "evergreen clause;" it would automatically kick in if Glavine met certain performance levels over the course of the contract. So if he pitched well and stayed healthy, then the fourth year would be guaranteed.
Schuerholz doesn't go into details, but he says that at one point in the negotiations Glavine and team president Stan Kasten were shouting at each other. It was after this that Glavine announced that he had signed with the Mets (who did offer a fourth year). Schuerholz was disappointed to lose him, none the less. Days later, Glavine spoke about the negotiations in the paper, referring to the team as "unprofessional" and making several allegations that Schuerholz says were groundless. So Schuerholz and Kasten had a press conference with the press and gave a blow-by-blow account of the negotiations in order to refute Glavine. This was a break with company policy, but Schuerholz didn't want Glavine's public posturing to make the Braves look like the bad guys when he left town. He felt that by going public with private team discussions, it would call Glavine's bluff.
But in spite of all this, Schuerholz soon got word that Glavine was having second thoughts. He was doing some soul-searching and wanted to meet with the GM. According to Schuerholz, he drove all the way out to Glavine's house to talk with him and his wife. It was a very emotional discussion, with everyone baring their all, and Glavine agonizing over a difficult decision. In the end, he decided to stay with the Braves.
Soon after he left, Schuerholz got a call from Glavine's agent, Greg Clifton. Clifton was livid that Schuerholz would meet with Glavine without his agent present (this despite the fact that it was Glavine's meeting). He threw a lot of vitriol at the GM and accused him of tampering (which was bogus, since Glavine was not yet a member of the Mets). Schuerholz didn't hear from Glavine for a couple days, so he called him. Glavine said that he was going to the Mets. And he did.
Schuerholz's take on this (which seems perfectly reasonable) is that Clifton, as well as the player's union, put a lot of pressure on Glavine to take the higher-paying contract. Schuerholz feels that Clifton had his interests and the union's ahead of Glavine's own wishes. And even though Schuerholz admittedly hates dealing with agents, it sounds like he's exactly right. Clifton wouldn't be the first (or only) agent to hijack the free agent process from the player in order to get the most money, period.
Schuerholz also mentions something that I (in my naivete) had never heard of before; the player's union pressuring players to take higher contracts. And even though Schuerholz hates the union almost as much as he hates agents, he seems to have the facts to back it up. I wonder why the union's meddling isn't discussed more often, if it's that obvious to the GMs and players. When people complain about skyrocketing salaries, why don't some sporstwriters step up and implicate the union, which is putting its finger on the scale of the free market and in the process working against (or in spite of) the wishes of the players themselves. I worry more and more about the overpowerful baseball union, which seems to have lost most (if not all) of the integrity they earned the hard way under the leadership of Marvin Miller.

The David Cone Trade
Schuerholz eats some humble pie by referring to the trading away of David Cone as his worst trade ever. While he does admit that it was terrible, he tries to justify his reasoning by saying that Kansas City needed a catcher with a great throwing arm, and his scouts like Ed Hearn. But after the trade, Hearn's arm was injured, while Cone won a Cy Young with the Mets.
I'm sorry, but even John Schuerholz knows that a pitching arm like David Cone's is more valuable than any catcher's throwing arm. Cone was already in the majors and pitching well when the trade was made.
But then there's not a whole lot in the book about his time in Kansas City. He talks about his great relationship with the other executives, and his fawning admiration for owner Ewing Kauffmann, and the World Series Championship of 1985. What he doesn't discuss is the Royals' subsequent fall from grace, where a team that had been very good for ten years became an afterthought, all of this with Schuerholz at the helm. He does talk about his "decision" to go to Atlanta after 1990, and the Royals' executives letting him go. He doesn't mention this:
KC Royals
1985: 91-71, World Champions
1986: 76-86, 3rd place
1987: 83-79, 2nd place
1988: 84-77, 3rd place
1989: 92-70, 2nd place
1990: 75-86, 6th place

Schuerholz had a legitimate World Champion and, under his watch, it was basically pissed away, and the franchise has never recovered since. The team made some terrible trades (the Cone deal at the top), failed to develop its own hitters to replace the aging core of the '85 team, and saw Bret Saberhagen's career go off the tracks. It did develop David Cone, Kevin Appier, and Tom Gordon, but of the three, only Appier would pitch well for the Royals.
Schuerholz side-steps discussion of those later years in Kansas City, which don't reflect well on him at all as a General Manager, and may help explain why the Royals didn't fight to keep him after the '91 season.
At the same time, Schuerholz takes great pride in the young players developed by the Braves during his tenure: Glavine, Smoltz, David Justice, Ron Gant, Steve Avery, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones, etc. And while he doesn't explicitly take credit for them, it should be said that Bobby Cox was responsible for drafting and developing the first five players on that list when he was GM. Andruw Jones wasn't drafted, but signed out of the Caribbean. In fact, for Schuerholz's entire career as a GM, his drafts have been pretty darn bad until just recently.

This isn't related to the entry above, but I have to mention this quote, referring to the 2005 season:

"Suddenly, the holes in our rotation left by the free agent departures of Russ Ortiz and Jaret Wright were not only filled, but we had aces #1 [John Smoltz] and 1A [Tim Hudson] to go with Mike Hampton, John Thomson and Horacio Ramirez, any one of whom would have been considered the staff ace on some teams."

Horacio Ramirez . . . a staff ace?! I'll allow Schuerholz some bias in favor of his players, but this is just laughable. And what team would want Mike Hampton or John Thomson as their ace, even back in 2005?

The Diary of a Major League Deal
That's the title of Schuerholz's chapter devoted entirely to the process of trading for Tim Hudson. His attention to detail is great, and it's a very enlightening peek behind the curtain.

Tutelage
When Schuerholz first entered baseball, it was with the defending World Champion Baltimore Orioles of 1966. The team president was Frank Cashen, Harry Dalton was running baseball ops, and his supervisor (and "mentor") was Lou Gorman. These are three very talented and influential baseball executives working for an excellent organization, so Schuerholz started right off learning from the best.

The Road Not Taken ...
In 1975, Schuerholz received an offer from Yankees GM Gabe Paul to join their front office. He and the Yankees came to terms on a deal, but the Royals came up with a counter-offer that included a promotion. Schuerholz stayed in Kansas City. And he has the ulcer-less stomach to prove it.

Leo Mazzone and Healthy Pitchers
A short quote that says a lot:

"[Bobby Cox] will just not let a guy continue who says he doesn't feel right or can't go another inning. Bobby will not abuse a pitcher.
Ever.
Ever."

It's perhaps the firmest statement in the whole book. Are you listening, Dusty?

Coping With Baseball Economics and Agents
This is the title to Chapter 8 of the book. I'll summarize: He hates them both.
Schuerholz actually takes time to decry the Messersmith decision that established free agency in baseball. I know that John is old-fashioned and all that, but does he really want to trash the very concept of free agency? He never says so, but that's what he seems to think.
He also bemoans the economics of baseball, with the Yankees spending money and all that. I'm sorry, John; nobody buys that argument anymore. Especially when you make a dishonest argument.
Schuerholz makes all the usual arguments about the Braves being at a competitive disadvantage when compared to big payroll teams like the Yankees. He says that even though Atlanta is a great city, it's no New York, and he just can't compete for salaries.
Let's cut the crap, John. Here are three letters that don't appear anywhere in Schuerholz's whining about finances:
T-B-S
Did you forget, John? Did you forget that you Braves teams were feeding off of an artificially enlarged market that offered your team far more income than cities of comparable size? The Braves, through TBS, increased their market share beyond Atlanta and throughout the Deep South and parts of the entire country, thanks to cable TV. This "superstation" advantage gave the Braves and Cubs a huge competitive advantage that actually produced an outcry from other owners that the Superstation teams were expanding their markets too far and stealing away their own fans.
And how much did TBS pay the Braves for TV rights? How much extra income was generated by the Superstation itself, and how much extra revenue did the Braves generate thanks to their nationwide exposure?
John, you had an advantage over every other NL team except the Cubs. For most of your existence, you were the most financially viable team in the league, with the possible exception of the Mets, Dodgers, and Cubs.
I don't accept a baseball executive's cries for poverty (did you have to take out a mortgage on your second home in Florida, John?), especially when it comes from one of the richer teams in the game.

Steroids
Schuerholz defends Bud Selig (surprise) on the steroids issue, arguing that any testing program or attempt to regulate performance-enhancing drugs would have to be approved by the union. Which (surprise) makes it sound like the union's fault that no action was taken about steroids in the 90's. What Schuerholz fails to mention is that the reason the union never approved a testing program is that Selig didn't bother to ask for one until 2002, when the shit had hit the fan. And the union approved it!
Schuerholz does praise the union -- he praises it for buckling down to pressure and re-opening the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2005 to rewrite the testing procedures, an action that drew furious protest from Marvin Miller.
Schuerholz loves Hank Aaron and wants to open Pandora's Box -- I'm sorry, I mean he wants to put asterisks next to the accomplishments of players who used steroids.
As you may have guessed, Schuerholz is a conservative. He's friends with Rush Limbaugh, who worked as an advertising/sales man with the Royals while Schuerholz was there.

Also, Schuerholz references the cocaine scandal that erupted while he was in Kansas City. After making a trade with the Giants, it was Vida Blue who "introduced this horrible pox of drugs upon our highly respected organization in Kansas City." Well said, John. Did you crush him with stones or just stain him with a scarlet letter?
Schuerholz takes some responsibility for not doing his due diligence in inquiring into Blue's "moral makeup and character." Because as we all know, only people of poor moral makeup and despicable character use drugs. Sheesh!


In conclusion, I guess Schuerholz's book would be best read by a conservative man looking for new fodder for his inspirational posters. It's worth reading for the baseball bits, but it's hard for me to get past the rest. Schuerholz doesn't come off as dishonest or manipulating in the book. I guess it's just that his views and mine are very far apart.

And on that note, I'm off to listen to the man who introduced the horrible pox of drugs upon our highly respected institution of talk radio: Rush Limbaugh.

(Just kidding. I never listen to Rush.)

Is it a rumor? Or just the landlord?

I stole that pun from Abbott & Costello. So even if I'm stealing my jokes, at least I'm stealing them from the right people.
But there's a lot of talk circulating now around baseball, especially in the wake of the Rich Harden trade (which I'll get to in a minute). The interesting thing is which teams are buying and which are selling, and why some of them may have it backward. What's also interesting is some of the names being thrown around as targeted acquisitions, the most surprising name being . . . Barry Bonds?

• First, the Harden deal. The A's traded Harden and reliever Chad Gaudin to the Cubs in exchange for pitcher Sean Gallagher, outfielder Matt Murton, outfielder/second baseman Eric Patterson, and minor league catcher Josh Donaldson.
  Let's look at this from the A's perspective: why are they trading away two valuable pitchers when they're still right in the middle of the pennant race? The A's are just 4.5 games back of the Angels in the AL West and 4 games behind the Red Sox in the Wild Card race. I admit that I don't think the A's were true contenders; they were seriously overachieving considering their roster. But that doesn't mean they weren't going to keep winning. Did Billy Beane just give up on a season where the A's had a legitimate shot?
  No and no. Beane didn't give up because he got good, major league-ready players in exchange. And no, the A's didn't really have a legitimate shot, which Beane must have known. Granted, a GM isn't supposed to be the first person to give up on a season. But don't sell Billy Beane short. The trade was a good one.
  Remember in Moneyball when players were compared to stocks, with their value rising and falling? Well, Rich Harden has been an extremely volatile stock since he arrived in the majors, thanks to injuries. But his stock price right now is very high, high enough to bring back Gallagher, Murton, and friends. Regardless of the pennant race, Beane wanted to get value for Harden while he still could. And this may have been his last chance. Harden's making $4.5 million this year. There is a club option on his contract for 2009, at $7 million, but I doubt Beane expected to exercise it. So unless Harden stays really healthy and pitches really well, he'll probably get cut loose into free agency after this season. Beane wasn't losing much.
  Harden spent most of April and early May on the DL, but has come back strong since then. But there's a lot of doubt that he can actually stay healthy, and he's shown signs of trouble in July, with his last start especially troublesome (5 IP, 3 R, 4 BB, 4 K). Now was the time to trade him. Especially when you take into account this excerpt from Keith Law's ESPN.com blog:
  
  "Harden complained of a dead arm after his July 1 outing against the Angels; his velocity was a little better in his most recent start, but his command was off. "
  
  So the alarm bells were already going off when Beane decided to trade him, perhaps in the nick of time. If Jim Hendry knew about these issues when he made the trade, then I'd have to say he was reckless (more on that later).
  
  As for Gaudin, he's a 25-year-old journeyman who's actually a decent starter and a pretty good reliever. But he's entering his arbitration years, and while he's a good addition to a pitching staff, he's far from irreplaceable.
  
  Your opinion of this trade basically depends on your opinion of Sean Gallagher. Some people see him as a margin starter, in which case the Cubs didn't lose much. Others see him as a potential asset and above-average guy, in which case he could out-perform Harden in the long- and short-term, if the latter continues to struggle with injuries.
  As for me, I see Gallagher as a real sleeper. The Cubs' rotation was crowded, and it's always been hard for a rookie to force his way in, especially when Dusty was there. But Gallagher is 22 year old, he's cheap, and he's good. In his minor league career, he posted a 2.77 ERA with 482 strikeouts in 481 IP. He's only had two stints in the majors. Last year, he threw 14.2 innings in relief and got hit hard, to the tune of an 8.59 ERA. This year he's thrown 58.2 inninngs, mostly as a starter, with a 4.45 ERA. But his peripherals were good: 22:49 BB:K ratio and 6 HR allowed. Now walks and homers are a bit of a concern for Gallagher, but the A's play in a big, roomy park, so that should help.
  Honestly, even considering how much potential Harden has, I think I would take Gallagher over Harden straight up. It's financially more sensible, you keep the player for much longer, and you're guaranteed what should be above-average innings, as opposed to very sporadic brilliance.
  But the A's got more (if not a whole lot): Matt Murton is a good outfielder who must have pissed off somebody in the Cubs organization, because he's never really gotten a fair shake to stick in the outfield. After doing a decent job in short stints with the club, the Cubs decided he couldn't be a really useful player and left him on the bench to rot. Murton's the kind of guy the A's love: a guy who has flaws, but also value. Murton kills left-handed pitching, and the A's outfielders are all hitting way over their heads. If Murton were platooned, or even just used sparingly against righties, he would be a very useful (and cheap) asset. The Cubs made a big mistake when they failed to use him and failed to trade him before they left him on the bench to rot and ruined his trade value. He's now literally been reduced to a throw-in.
  More of a throw-in is Eric Patterson, Corey's little brother, who's an outfielder and emergency second baseman. In terms of raw talent, Patterson isn't too far behind the likes of Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot, but those guys got the playing time and the good luck, so they stuck; Patterson got neither, and so was just twiddling his thumbs in the minors. Patterson's never going to hit well enough to start in the outfield, but he's a useful utility player, especially since he can cover second in a pinch.
  Donaldson was a good catching prospect heading into the season, but he's having a terrible year in '08. The Cubs drafted him out of Auburn last year, and he mashed in 49 Low-A games (346/470/605). He was promoted to the Cubs Regular A-level team in Peoria this year and has been awful: 217/276/349. College hitters in their second pro year should be able to handle A-ball. Donaldson isn't. Having said that, he's a great guy to take a flyer on. He's shown great promise in the past, and if this year is just a little speedbump, he could still turn out to be useful. The A's need catchers, as does everyone. And if not, it was worth a try.
  
  For the Cubs, the outlook on the trade is a bit different; the Cubs are thinking short-term, so they don't really care what happens to Harden after this season. They'd already given up and/or ruined Murton and Patterson, so they were expendable. And losing Josh Donaldson probably won't cost anybody their job.
  Essentially, the trade comes down to Harden and Gaudin for Gallagher. The Cubs may have already made up their minds about Gallagher, too; although with the crowd of pitchers vying for a spot in the rotation, they may have just felt that losing one of them wouldn't be so bad. And even if the Cubs did think highly of Gallagher, they gave up on him with the understanding that it was worth taking the risk on Harden and Gaudin.
  I can't argue with Gaudin. He's moving from the AL West to the NL Central, which tends to do good things for your ERA. He's a great middle reliever who could start in a pinch, and you can never have too many of those guys. But what about Harden . . . ?
  We'll have to see how it turns out. But we can't judge the trade in retrospect; we have to determine if Jim Hendry made the right decision, knowing what he knows now, about Rich Harden.
  Personally, I think Hendry got too starry-eyed and fell in love with a guy that's going to break his heart. If Keith Law is correct about Harden's last two starts, then I wouldn't go near him in a trade. Harden is very comparable to Mark Prior, and Cubs fans know what happens when you pin your faith on those guys. Even if I'm proven wrong and Harden stays healthy, I still think this wasn't the right decision, knowing what we know now. I know that the Cubs are desperate for a World Series and are willing to sacrifice anything in the future to get that ring; that's understandable. But this trade doesn't sound like it's going to help them even in the short-term.
  Another point that makes me think the Cubs made a faulty rush to judgment is Buster Olney's claim that the Cubs weren't even in talks with the A's until the Brewers traded for C.C. Sabathia. In less than 48 hours after the Sabathia trade was announced, the Cubs made their initial contact with the A's and completed this trade. Hendry is quoted making vague statements that the team had been looking for help, namely Harden, for quite some time now. But all the evidence points to the fact that this was a snap move done less for the good of the ballclub and more as a desperate counter to a big move by a divisional rival. In that case, the trade was inspired as much by the need for a PR response to Sabathia and an irrational sense of one-upsmanship than any baseball information. Olney has made his claim, and he's one of the most reliable baseball reporters out there. I'll easily believe him over Hendry and all the local (presumably unbiased) Chicago papers, whose only sources for ongoing talks were apparently Hendry and his partners.
  
  This trade may turn out well for the Cubs, and I'll look silly for saying all of these things. But regardless of what happens, I think that a) the Cubs took on a substantial risk that hurts them in the short run, and b) they probably did it for a lot of reasons having nothing to do with baseball.
• Rumors: According to mlbtraderumors.com and the ESPN.com rumor mill, Barry Bonds has been mentioned in internal discussions with several clubs, most notably the Arizona Diamondbacks. In fact, the Diamondbacks have publicly admitted discussing Bonds, which doesn't sound like much, but is the most public interest any team has been willing to show this season. Bonds would be a great fit for Arizona, as they need an offensive boost and have a huge hole in left field: Eric Byrnes is out for the season. Although to be fair, that huge hole was there even when Byrnes was healthy.
  There's also been a rumor that the Red Sox were interested in Bonds, even a rumor that they had a secret workout with him at Fenway Park. Given the amount of media attention surrounding Barry Bonds and the Red Sox, respectively, I highly doubt such a thing could be kept secret. Theo Epstein has denied the rumors, and it's hard for me to see a place for Bonds, since David Ortiz seems to be recovering nicely. You can't have three DHs in a lineup, no matter what Michael Lewis says.
  Bonds has been "suggested" for other teams seeking outfield help, with most people offering up the Mets as a perfect fit. I personally think Bonds would be great for the Mets, since they desperately need offense from the outfield. As far as Bonds' "baggage" is concerned, I think the Mets have already had so many clubhouse problems and PR fiascoes that the signing of Bonds would be accepted pretty easily. And the Met fans might not like him, but they want to win the division a lot more than they hate Barry Bonds, and even they can see what a big help he might be.
  I personally never bought into the allegations of collusion against Bonds. Mainly I think that the Bonds situation is so sensitive that Bud Selig, much though he hates Bonds, wouldn't want to create a significant legal issue with the MLB as a defendant. And honestly, I think those inside the game know that if they signed Barry Bonds it wouldn't be the huge PR nightmare that some people seem to think it would be. And lastly, I think teams would just get too covetous of Bonds' abilities to abide by the Commissioner's office in what would be an illegal (and potentially expensive) act. I should say, though, that nothing the MLB does would surprise me, morally. I just think that Bud Selig is smarter and more practical than many of his predecessors. He wouldn't put the industry at risk of another multi-million dollar settlement and publicly damaging lawsuit just to spite Barry Bonds.
  But that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.
• The Braves are really in a quandary about whether to be buyers or sellers on the trade market. They're pretty far out of the race, but they've got some good talent and if you look at their Pythagorean record, they're the second-best team in the division. But I myself just don't see it happening. With Smoltz out as a starter, Glavine out, and Chipper likely to miss a few weeks here and there, they just don't have the talent, especially pitching-wise, to sustain a prolonged push for the playoffs. If I were them, I'd be energetically shopping Mark Teixeira.
• Some other teams don't seem to realize what side of the trading fence they're actually on. The Indians have already run up the white flag on 2008, and understandably so. The Rockies, Pirates, and probably the Royals will follow. But why aren't the Washington Nationals, the Cincinnati Reds, or the Houston Astros going into full-sell mode? Neither team is going to be contenders this year, and if they think they are, they're grossly mistaken. Nationals GM Jim Bowden has never been one to trade away excess talent, no matter how far in last place his team is. It's one of the biggest blunders of his entire tenure as GM of the team that he didn't trade away Alfonso Soriano, Chad Cordero, Dmitri Young, Jon Rauch, and several other players while they were at their peak value.
  The Reds are still in a transitional period, front office-wise, and could start selling. I'm sure they'd like to sell on Ken Griffey, Jr., but who would want him? They may end up selling on Adam Dunn, but surprisingly very few teams are going after Dunn. I still don't understand why baseball ops people (J.P. Ricciardi isn't the only one) like to hate on the Donkey. Get him for a half-season, and he'll do ya wonders. And why not, if you're the Mets, D-Backs, Yankees or somebody who could really use a first baseman or left fielder? I'm not sure who else the Reds would like to make available. I'd like to see them trade Bronson Arroyo, if only to get rid of those damn JTM commercials. But Arroyo is expensive and hasn't pitched well in two years.
  And the Astros wouldn't know a good idea if it fell out of the sky, landed on their face, and started to wiggle.

RIP, Mr. Carlin.

AL East: Down the Rabbit Hole

Tampa Bay Rays

When am I ever going to learn? I should never doubt Nate Silver's PECOTA system of projecting the future performance of players (and teams) ever again, lest I be made a fool of once again. This pre-season, PECOTA predicted that the Rays would win 89 games. I (and most others) thought that was preposterous. Maybe they could get a run of good luck and win 80 games. But 89 games? CONTENDERS? I laughed.

I'm not laughing anymore.

The Rays have the best record in baseball at 54-32, and in other news, east is west, the twain shall meet, and the Pope is Buddhist.

And this is no fluke, folks. After a 2007 season in which the Rays' defense was one of the worst ever recorded, and their pitching staff was miserable, they've made a truly miraculous turnaround. In 2007, the Rays allowed 5.83 R/G, with an ERA of 5.53. Both were dead last in the AL by half a run at least. Not only that, but their Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER, the percentage of balls in play converted to outs) was .650, the lowest mark in some 50 years. So you can see why I was skeptical of the 2008 Rays.
Well, those 2008 Rays have turned things around. They've allowed 3.95 R/G (cutting almost two full runs off their total) with a 3.59 ERA. Both marks are third in the AL. Not only that, but their DER is .714 . . . the best in the AL. This kind of shit just doesn't happen, folks. The Rays' improvement in DER alone is the best ever recorded, as far back as they track DER. We toss around "Miracle" a lot in sports, but if the Rays make the postseason, they will easily be one of the 5 most miraculous teams in MLB history. If they make it to or (God help us) WIN the World Series, it will be the biggest miracle in baseball history. The Miracle Braves of 1914 and the Miracle Mets of '69 will have to step aside and make room for the Miracle Rays of '08.
As for their offense? Last year they scored 4.83 R/G, about average. This year, they've scored 4.78 R/G. That's actually an improvement, as run production in the AL as a whole has dropped by nearly half a run this year, a pretty historic shift. (Scoring in the NL has dropped, too, but only about half as much.) So the Rays' offense is actually better this year. The big improvements are at third base, where Evan Longoria (281/351/529) has taken over from Ty Wigginton & co., and at catcher, where Dioner Navarro (318/370/435) has taken over from . . . himself (227/286/356)? Navarro may not really be as good as he looks this year, but just 24 years old and may turn out to be the good catching prospect the Yankees thought he was, many years and three trades ago.
The rest of the offense is proceeding as expected: B.J. Upton and Aki Iwamura are both doing fine. In fact, there are several spots in the lineup that will improve, if anything. Carl Crawford (285/331/410), Carlos Pena (225/335/424), and Jason Bartlett (256/299/293) are going to get a lot better before they get any worse. In fact, the only guy who's playing over his head is Eric Hinske, who's hitting 257/344/509. Really, there's no problems here. This is the 3rd-best offense in the league right now with the potential to be (gulp) the best.



There are more problems with pitching than with hitting, but even still, they're doing so well that it's nitpicking to point them out. Scott Kazmir has been great (2.63 ERA, 75 K in 72 IP), James Shields is looking good (3.70 ERA, 20:88 BB:K ratio in 109.1 IP), and trade acquisition Matt Garza has been sharp (3.47 ERA, although 58 K in 90.2 IP isn't very impressive). Even Edwin Jackson, the busted prospect who had (seemingly) run out of last chances, has come back to post a 4.08 ERA, although his 45:62 BB:K ratio is suspect. And even their worst starter, in terms of ERA, is Andy Sonnanstine (4.31 ERA, 108.2 IP). On some teams, he'd be the best starter. There's still a lot that could go wrong with so many unproven talents, but these kids are all good and all of them are playing well within their potential, even if it's shocking that they all got there this year.

The bullpen hasn't been great, but it's been a vast improvement over 2007's historically bad squad. The Rays spent good money on Troy Percival, and while he wasn't great, he was good enough (3.54 ERA, 30 K in 28 IP), although a recent injury has him out for a while. But Dan Wheeler (1.82 ERA) has transitioned admirably from setup man to closer. Behind him the team has gotten good, if not great, work from Trever Miller, J.P. Howell, Gary Glover, and Grant Balfour.



I can't believe I'm saying it, but it's true, and everyone agrees; this team can make the playoffs and it can win in the playoffs. Even if the Red Sox fight past them, they're an easy favorite for Wild Card.

Boston Red Sox

Those same Red Sox were recently embarassed on a trip to Tampa that saw them go down quietly in a three-game sweep. The Red Sox aren't the juggernaut people (like me) expected them to be, especially without David Ortiz. But they're still the Red Sox, and it will take more than that to keep this team out of October baseball.

The Sox are scoring 4.99 R/G, second only to the Rangers in the AL. It's hard to complain, but they could be doing better than that. Few teams in baseball could survive the loss of a guy like David Ortiz, but lucky for them, the Sox are one of them. Even if Ortiz is gone and Jason Varitek has shriveled up like an overripe tomato (219/301/359, and he's going to the All-Star Game . . . don't get me started), there is still a lot of good happening here. J.D. Drew is having one of his few-and-far-between healthy and productive seasons, hitting 304/413/573. The infield is all mashing as expected, except for Julio Lugo (262/351/328) who may be displaced by Jed Lowrie (310/340/476 in 48 PAs) sometime soon. Manny isn't hitting quite like the old Manny (279/379/495), but he's still a quality guy; I know I've hedged my bets on this, but my feeling now is that we've seen the last of MVP Manny. And even if we haven't, the Sox shouldn't pick up his contract options unless they're high.
Pitching-wise, the Sox are more troubled. They're allowing 4.13 R/G, which is 6th in the AL (although their ERA+ of 112 is 4th). There's more room for improvement here. Granted, it's hard to complain when you have five starters with an ERA under 4.00. But it's a lot to expect Jon Lester, good though he is, to maintain a 3.21 ERA, and Daisuke Matsuzaka has been excellent (3.12 ERA), but it's the most laborious sort of excellence there is. The other four pitchers in the Sox rotation all average at least 6 IP per start. Matsuzaka averages 5.36, which is notably lower. Matsuzaka labors on the mound and can throw 20+ pitches in a quick inning. In the old days, the term "7-inning pitcher" was an insult. Well, nowadays a 5-inning pitcher is an insult, even if he's as good as Daisuke. It's great to hold off the opposition for 5 innings, but somebody has to pitch the other 4. And I should note that Daisuke has maintained his ERA despite walking 49 batters in those 75 innings, an unacceptable number. It's a miracle (and partially luck) that more of those walks don't end up scoring, and it helps explain where all those extra pitches are going.
The good news, though, is that the Sox have a backup plan. Clay Buchholz is cooling his heels in Triple-A, and it's likely that he'll be recalled to join the rotation soon. Rookie Justin Masterson has pitched well since he was called up, but he'll likely move to the bullpen once Buchholz comes back. This means that even if one of these guys does fall apart, the Sox will have a sixth starter in waiting.

The bullpen has been pretty good, with some exceptions. It comes as little surprise that Mike Timlin and Julian Tavarez have reached the end of the line. But the Sox really need a better explanation for what's wrong with Manny Delcarmen (4.63 ERA despite good peripherals) and Craig Hansen (5.84 ERA due mainly to a lot of walks).

It's hard to imagine the Red Sox not making the playoffs, even if they can't pass the Rays. That makes them my mid-season pick for the Wild Card, I guess. I just can't see any of the other divisions producing anything to challenge them. The winner of the AL Central (Chicago, Minnesota, Detroit) will be the only one that doesn't fall apart down the stretch, and although Oakland is a strong 2nd place in the West, I just can't see them getting by with smoke and mirrors all season long.

New York Yankees

While I am surprised that the Yankees are just 46-42 at this point, I can't say that I'm totally shocked. I expected them to be better, but when you rely on a dangerous combination of an aging offense and a green-as-grass rotation, there's a lot of room for disappointment. And the Yankees have unfortunately seen more things go wrong than right.

Despite the resurgence of Jason Giambi (295/395/543) and his excellent retro-80's moustache, the Yankee offense has been disappointing. Sportswriters take note that the most disappointing Yankee has been Derek Jeter, who's hitting a pedestrian 282/345/387. And right next to him, Robinson Cano is struggling, hitting 249/287/361 for no apparent reason. Cano's young, and hopefully this will pass, but I'm afraid it's too late. The tattered remains of Morgan Ensberg, Shelley Duncan, and others have given the Yankees some of the worst production from the first base position in all of baseball. That's imply inexcusable, since they've had the same problem for nearly three years and still haven't solved it. The only thing keeping the infield from going down in flames is the ongoing excellence of Alex Rodriguez (320/407/596).
Worse news still for the Yanks is that two of their best hitters have been felled by injuries. Hideki Matsui (323/404/458) may be lost for the season, and Johnny Damon (319/387/470) recently went on the DL, and I don't know how long it will be until he comes back.
I'm sorry, but you need more than A-Rod, Giambi, Jorge Posada and Bobby Abreu to form a competitive lineup. And there are too many problems for the Yanks to solve them this year.

The same goes for the pitching staff. The Yanks are allowing 4.43 R/G, which is better than average, but not when you consider that they've lost their ace, Chien-Ming Wang, until September at least, and that their only other good starter, Joba Chamberlain, is suffering from the Daisuke blues that kick in around the 5th inning. Mike Mussina and Andy Pettite have done pretty well, but not well enough to fill in the gaps, and neither man is a safe bet to keep it up given their recent past.

"Wait 'til next year" may be devilspeak in the Bronx, but it's the unfortunate truth.

Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles have done fairly well this year; they're 44-42 and just a game back of the Yankees for 3rd place. But the worst thing they can do is to start thinking they're really this good. If they abandon their rebuilding plans just to chase some fantasy of contention, then they're really up a creek.

That's not to say that the Orioles haven't made progress. They have, on offense, defense, and pitching. Starting with the offense, the O's are scoring 4.67 R/G this year, which is actually above league average. And while their offense isn't exactly built for the long haul, it's not all smoke and mirrors either. Brian Roberts (295/373/493) and Nick Markakis (297/394/486) are for real. Luke Scott (265/339/498) has been pretty good as well. Adam Jones hasn't been that bad (282/322/398) and only stands to get much better. On the other hand, Aubrey Huff (281/344/523) power renaissance doesn't ring true. And while Kevin Millar is just a fair hitter (259/351/412) at first, at least he's consistent.
The big problems on offense didn't exactly take me by surprise, with the possible exception of struggling catcher Ramon Hernandez (246/288/385). I'm not at all surprised by the struggles of Jay Payton (240/282/368), Melvin Mora (234/304/396) or the shoddy, sub-replacement-level shortstops the O's have been trotting out.
It's an average offense, which is good if you're Baltimore. The problem is that if you project 3-5 years into the future, you've just got Markakis, Jones, and maybe Brian Roberts. They'll still be paying on bad contracts (such as Mora's) and don't have enough in the farm system to simply stay afloat. There are some temporary fixes and aging contributors that are making this year's lineup better-than-average, but management shouldn't delude themselves about the future of this offense. Neither should they seek the solution on the free agent market, as they've failed miserably to do so in the past.

The O's pitching isn't awful, which is a big step forward. They're allowing 4.66 R/G this year, a far sigh better than 2007's 5.36 (the improvement is only somewhat offset by the league-wide decline in offense). The best news is with the defense, which ranks 3rd in all of baseball with a .707 DER. And the bullpen has been turned around significantly. Despite losing closer Chris Ray for the season, the O's did well for themselves by acquiring George Sherrill from Seattle. Sherrill hasn't been brilliant (3.72 ERA, 22:41 BB:K ratio), but he's held up. Jim Johnson (1.88 ERA) has been excellent, although his peripherals don't support such a low ERA. The O's have also gotten good work from Dennis Sarfate, spot starter "Hey, Hey, Hey, It's" Matt Albers, and Lance Cormier. The bad news is that everyone I just mentioned is getting by with a dangerously high walk rate. In fact, only the Rangers have allowed more walks in the AL than Baltimore. So this good bullpen could just be a mirage of good luck once those walks come home to roost.

Which brings me to the rotation. They're walking people, too, just without that extra luck that keeps your ERA down. With the exception of Jeremy Guthrie (3.61 ERA, 36:80 BB:K ratio), the rest of the Orioles' starters have been disappointing. To be fair, though, Daniel Cabrera (4.34 ERA, 47 BB in 118.1 IP) has been much less disappointing than usual. He's lowered his walk rate dramatically, which would be grand if he hadn't also lowered his strikeout rate (just 66). Brian Burres and Garret Olson have been similarly bad with the walks (and lack of strikeouts) to back it up. Steve Trachsel (8.39 ERA) has been dreadful, and there's simply no excuse for handing him the ball anymore. Even if you are the Orioles.

Things are getting better in Baltimore. And there are a few young players on the way to help out. But it's not enough to stem the tide of sucktitude emanating from the city. Unless the Orioles find some way to build something for the future beyond Nick Markakis and Adam Jones, they're destined to become the new Devil Rays.

Toronto Blue Jays

They've got a great pitching staff, and credit goes to the front office for getting this group together. But just as much blame goes their way for their ongoing failure to assemble even a remotely competent offense. The Jays are 12th in the AL in R/G, at 4.09. They just can't make any progress, and they can no longer blame the Yankees and Red Sox for it. If the Devil Rays can contend in the AL East with 25% the money Toronto has to spend, somebody should be held responsible. And that responsibility rests with J.P. Ricciardi and his staff.

The Jays have made a concentrated effort to target easily projectable college hitters in the draft. These guys can be good picks, yes, but not exclusively. They're easy to project because they've already started to reach their peak, and it's not that high. They can certainly be useful parts (Adam Lind, Aaron Hill), but if that's the best drafting you've done after all these years, you've got a problem.

The Jays have shied away from big-money hitters on the market, which is a shame, since they can afford to sign them or trade for them. And they've made the poor decision to settle with the semi-stars they already have, offering them contract extensions rather than spending that money elsewhere. And while Vernon Wells and Alexis Rios are good players, they are not franchise players, and if you're building your team around them, you're screwed. And so are the Jays screwed, since they're stuck paying these guys exorbitant prices for a number of years.

The only decent hitter in the entire lineup this year has been Scott Rolen, who's hit 275/363/446. Too bad that Rolen's old and injury-prone. Alexis Rios (7 yrs, $70 mil.) is hitting 284/336/398 and is a career 287/338/445 hitter. (Cornerstone of a franchise -- or league-average right fielder?) Vernon Wells is hitting 280/321/447, which isn't too bad for a center fielder -- unless he's just entered the first year of a 7-year, $126 million contract. Both the Rios and Wells contracts are heavily backloaded, by the way -- which means that unless they can trade them to some moron, they're going to be handcuffed paying nearly $30 million a year to barely above-average players through 2012. Wells, by the way, is a career 281/330/477 hitter who turns 30 in December. Whoopee.

The good news is the pitching staff. The starting rotation of Halladay-McGowan-Burnett-Litsch-Marcum is one of the best in the league. Although they would do well to trade Burnett while he's still upright. They've also gotten great work from their bullpen, which consists of big-name closer B.J. Ryan and a bunch of no-names that are, together, one of the best pens in the league. I'll give the Toronto front office credit where credit is due for locking up Halladay (who actually deserves a big-time contract) and creating a top-notch pitching staff out of a group of no-names that a lot of teams would have passed on.

But this franchise is going nowhere without an offense. This will be even more painfully obvious as Halladay and Ryan age, and the front office will be forced to produce a couple more ace pitchers on short notice. It wouldn't be such a problem if the team could hit, but it can't. And considering their track record, I wouldn't trust this group to assemble one.

Back soon with an update on baseball books and then -- the AL Central.

C.C. See ya

The specifics are still coming out, but it appears that C.C. Sabathia has been traded to the Brewers, pending the usual paperwork and medical checks. In return, the Indians get the Brewers' top hitting prospect, first baseman Matt LaPorta, as well as a couple other players. Since the deal hasn't officially been announced yet, I haven't been able to get a firm lock on who else the Brewers are giving up in the deal. Keith Law's ESPN.com column indicates that the Indians will also be getting: Rob Bryson, a solid pitching prospect; Zach Jackson, a lefty who looks right now like an extra man in the bullpen; and a player to be named later (PTBNL), and there are a number of guesses on who that could be, although it doesn't look like the Brewers will be giving up any A-list prospects, other than LaPorta.
For the Brewers, this is a really good trade. It's a big risk, considering that they've still got a lot of other things to do before they're in the postseason, but they just got the biggest boost any team is going to be getting this July. After a slow start, Sabathia has been dominant in the AL Central, and moving to the NL Central will only make him perform better. Sabathia is a free agent after this season, so the Brewers will be getting just a half-season of the ace. But they seem perfectly aware of the fact and willing to take the risk, knowing that even if they don't sign him to an extension (which is a virtual impossibility), they'll get two good draft picks when he leaves as a free agent.
When I first heard that the Brewers were in the mix for Sabathia, it surprised me. Yes, they're contenders, but I didn't expect them to give up prospects for a half-season rent. After all, they're not a "win-now" team . . . or are they? While the Brewers do have a fantastic homegrown offense that will keep them contending for the near future, their pitching staff isn't in such good shape. They will probably be losing ace Ben Sheets to free agency, which makes it all the more imperative to put it all on the line now and shoot for the top with a dynamite Sabathia-Sheets combo at the top of the rotation. Not only does it move the rest of the starting staff down in the order, it helps ease the pain of losing young Yovani Gallardo (who was supposed to be in Sabathia's role) to injury earlier this year. I tend to be conservative when it comes to evaluating trades, but sometimes, you just need to take a risk. And not only was this a calculated risk, it comes for a franchise that desperately needs it, not only for 2008, but for historical reasons. Several writers have attempted to quantify the economic boost a franchise gets from a postseason appearance, and my guess would be that a small-market, long-struggling team like Milwaukee would get a bigger boost than most.
The Brew Crew did give up an A-level prospect in LaPorta, but even that isn't such bad news, since there was nowhere for LaPorta to play in the big leagues. The kid's a natural first baseman, but his path there was firmly blocked by Prince Fielder. The team tried him in the outfield in the minors, but it apparently didn't turn out well. Anyhow, the Brewers have him blocked in left field (Ryan Braun) and right field (Corey Hart). Simply put, the Brewers weren't getting out of this without trading away a very good player. The only question was who and for what. Under the circumstances, I think GM Doug Melvin did just fine for himself, especially since, as I said, he only lost one A-level prospect.
Which is one of the problems with this deal for Cleveland. They had 24 days until the trade deadline to shop Sabathia around for a better deal. When I first heard yesterday that the Brewers were close to closing the deal, the word was that LaPorta and another top prospect were going to Cleveland. I wonder why Cleveland felt like they had to settle for just one. Granted, I'm not as close to the situation, so it's hard for me to judge. Maybe Cleveland thinks more highly of Bryson and Jackson than I (and Keith Law) do. Maybe they figured this was the best deal out there for Sabathia. But it's hard to see how waiting would have hurt them; adding more suitors surely would have helped them. Time will tell on this one, I suppose.
It's unfortunate that the Indians are pulling the plug on a season where I picked them to win their division, but it is, alas, only a faint chance that they're contenders. It's too late now for them to pass the White Sox, Twins, and the resurgent Tigers. There may be other players going out the door for Cleveland, but I still see them poised as contenders in 2009. And LaPorta really fills a need for the Cleveland team, as they're weak on productions in the four corners (1B, 3B, LF, RF). LaPorta is killing Double-A right now and may get promoted to Triple-A before the season is over. Most articles I've read have him arriving in the majors sometime in 2009. This gives the Indians time to see if Ryan Garko can work out at first. If not, either somebody moves or somebody gets traded. The third possibility, which is the worst for Cleveland but must be considered, is that someone gets shifted to the DH slot to replace a potentially busted Travis Hafner.
Other MLB news:

• I alluded to this at the end of my last blog, but it's still hard to fathom: Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon physically assaulted GM Ed Wade, reportedly grabbing him by the neck and throwing him to the ground. Which is just a really, really, really stupid thing to do. Chacon was the first to get to the reporters, so he put his spin on the story, which is the linked article at the end of my last post. I wasn't there, but I find it hard to believe that Chacon was simply fending off a belligerent Ed Wade in the middle of a team meal. In fact, Chacon's insistence that Wade talk to him in front of the other players sounds to me like someone whose pride is hurt and is looking to get it back by tossing around his boss in public. I don't know Ed Wade, so I can't say for sure that Chacon is lying, but even if Wade really did disrespect him or something, you just don't fight your boss and expect to keep your job (and your money). The Astros not only released Chacon, they terminated his contract (under the clause that says you shouldn't attack old people), denying him the remaining $900,000 or so left on it. The union has filed a grievance and is fighting it. I'm sorry, I'm a union man and all, but in any other job could you conceivably not get fired for manhandling your boss? Could you honestly expect some sort of paid release under those circumstances? Only in baseball.
  The saddest thing about this is that the union might win, making a mockery of any sort of control management has over players.
  No, actually, the saddest thing is that this was a fight over being demoted to the bullpen.
  Check that. The saddest thing here is that Shawn Freakin' Chacon -- Mr. 4.99 career ERA -- has the gall to be insulted by his removal from the starting rotation.
  No, no, no. The saddest, most tragic aspect of this whole affair is that the Astros thought it was a good idea to pay Shawn Chacon $2 million to play for them this year. Chacon's last words to Wade should have been, "Dude, didn't you know that I suck?"
  
  In all seriousness, I have a question I want to pose (and really need to) to some baseball history geeks: when is the last time a player had a physical altercation with a general manager? Fights with managers are rare, but they do happen, the last notable example being John Gibbons' Golden Gloves performance with Ted Lilly in Toronto. But has a player ever gone after an executive? I'm sure someone has tried, but has it ever happened? I'd be interested to find out. Somehow I can't picture Pete Rose "throwing down" with Bob Howsam, or Babe Ruth going one-on-one with Ed Barrow.
  Also, it should be mentioned that Manny Ramirez also had an "incident" recently. He allegedly threw the Boston traveling secretary to the floor in a fight over ticket allotments. But Manny apologized, and the whole thing was basically forgotten. And forgive my poor memory, but someone (if I remember, I'll link) recently wrote an article comparing the Ramirez incident to Chacon's and examining the vastly different treatment the two incidents got, both in the media, and from team officials.

I'm working right now on an entry about the AL East at the halfway point. And after that, I need to do an update on all the baseball books I've read since my last entry. I just finished Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella's fine book The Black Prince of Baseball, about Hal Chase, and I just started John Schuerholz's book, Built to Win, about his years in baseball, particularly as GM of the Braves. The Schuerholz book has several interesting stories which I'd like to discuss, particularly about his reaction to Moneyball, the acrimonious departure of Tom Glavine, and Barry Bonds, who was 1 hour away from being an Atlanta Brave.