Nationals Arm Race

Will we be seeing many more Yasiel Puigs in the majors soon? photo mlb.com

Big news last week (that I’m just posting today because I forgot to over the weekend :-).  Reversing literally decades of draconian socialist policy, Cuba announced on 9/27/13 that its residents will be allowed to compete in foreign leagues.  Players would be allowed to play in professional leagues outside of Cuba as long as they paid taxes on their income and returned home to play in the Cuban (winter) national league.  It seems like a more than reasonable policy that should end the “under cover of darkness” defection policy that Cuba’s best players have been adopting (and mostly risking their lives in the process) in order to pursue their dreams at salaries more commensurate with their skills on the international market.

My favorite side-effect of this policy may very well be the future effect on the World Baseball Classic Cuban team.  I surmised what a “politics-free” version of the Cuban team may have looked like for this year’s WBC, a post I wish I could re-visit now that we’ve seen just how amazing guys like Yasiel Puig, Jose Fernandez, Alberto Despaigne and Jose Iglesias really are.  Nonetheless you have to think a consolidated Cuban team (if they can find some pitching…they are thin on the mound) would be an early favorite for the next incarnation of the event.

One of my favorite baseball novels is The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream by two newspaper writers Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez.  They covered Orlando Hernandez, Cuban baseball, his amazing defection and eventual Yankees career in this 2001 novel (which was a partial compilation of a number of their newspaper articles over the years).  They show the effects of the ruthlessly cruel Cuban government on the nationalistic Hernandez, watch his general fall from grace, and hear the story of his near-death defection.  After reading this book you’re struck by a few obvious points:

• Life in Cuba under the socialistic government is awful.
• The fall of the USSR (and their billions of subsidies) really, really has destroyed what’s left of the Cuban economy.
• The efforts Cuban baseball players must go through just to pursue their dreams is beyond amazing.

You would have to think that this policy change is being done in reaction to a series of recent high profile defections.  Certainly guys like Yoenis Cespedes and Yasiel Puig have had immediate and huge impact on the majors in the very immediate past, but the quick-fire defections of Cuban stars Alexander Guerrero, Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez and especially long-time cuban slugger Jose Abreu in just the last couple of months has to have been unsettling (click here for a full list of Cuban defectees on wikipedia).  The Cuban government faces a set increasingly less-desirous options: ban its stars from playing at all and damaging its national sport, or stop traveling internationally and losing its fiercely held national pride in competing and winning these international tournaments.   This policy seemingly would benefit both parties; Cuba would retain some taxable income from the players’ efforts and the players would get to vastly increase their earnings while competing in higher level leagues.

Me personally, I think the Cuban embargo has long since run its course.  Yes I understand why it still exists, and I understand why those in the Cuban exile community still harbor significant resentment towards the Castro regime.  But at this point, with Fidel Castro nearly dead, his country in shambles and its people badly suffering, wouldn’t a change in policy help everyone out here?  Havana used to be a global tourist attraction, and US hotel companies have to be chomping at the bit at the opportunity to regain entry to the Cuban market.  The dependence on tourism as an industry was initially rejected as part of the nationalistic movement under Castro, but the influx of money and jobs would seem like a welcome change to Cuba’s starving and struggling citizens now.  We’ll see what happens from here; the US government has already stated its intended roadblocks from Cuban nationals sending taxes back to Cuba.  But somehow I think we can find a way around such a policy if it so benefits all involved.

A few other online stories/reactions if you’re interested in reading more analysis: BaseballMusings, AP via The Washington Post and HardballTalk.

Post-posting update: excellent analysis in The Economist as pointed out by Hardballtalk’s Craig Calcaterra that indicates the MLB impact may be very minimal thanks to the ongoing trade embargo.  I must admit I did not really consider this the impediment that it likely will be.  In the comments section of the Hardball article are some spirited debate with options: the best sounds like Cuban players signing one-year deals in other foreign leagues then defecting while they are out of the country.  That sounds like it could work…

Really? Photo presumably Cleveland Police department via netnews5.com

I thought this story was interesting.

Indians closer Chris Perez pled no-contest to a charge of mailing his dog 9 ounces of marijuana.  That’s right; his DOG.  That was really clever; no way anyone was gonna figure that one out.

His punishment?  A measly $250 and a year’s probation.

I think you get fined more if you cheat the HOV lanes on the Dulles Toll Road.

Frankly I think he should have gotten more punishment just for the stupidity of his actions.

Oh, by the way, Perez makes $7.3 MILLION dollars this year.  7.3M.  You think maybe perhaps he could have just paid whoever mailed him his weed to just drive the stuff up to him, making that kind of coin?

Now here’s a question: where’s Perez’s PED suspension??  Marijuana is clearly stated as a “Drug of Abuse” in section 2.A of the Joint Drug Abuse agreement, whose language says that players shall be “prohibited from using, possessing …” the drug.  Clearly Perez was caught possessing a rather large amount of the drug; whether or not he ever tested positive for it isn’t he warranted a suspension?  Or could legally everyone just claim it was all his wife’s idea?  Maybe so, but it was Perez who pled it out and seemingly should face the music from Bud Selig.

Arod, the greek tragedy figure. Photo John Munson/The Star-Ledger via nj.com

With somewhat of a lack of topics to write about lately, I turned to find a relatively deep Ask Boswell discussion on the Washington Post website 8/19/13.  Tom Boswell takes baseball questions, I provide my own answers.

As always, I’ll write answers here before reading his, and edit questions for clarity.  All stats quoted are as of 8/19/13.

Q: Leave it to the Red Sox to make A-Rod into a sympathetic figure!

A: Agree.  I wouldn’t normally have tuned into the expected 4.5 hour 8pm Sunday night game between Boston and New York, but just happened to see the first Alex Rodriguez at bat last night.  My immediate thought: Ryan Dempster‘s actions were pretty gutless and he should have been immediately ejected.   You throw at a guy once and miss?  You’ve made your point.  You had your chance to make a statement and missed.  But then throw two more balls inside then blatantly drill the guy on 3-0?  Sorry; that’s just bush league.  The umpires badly mismanaged that situation; Dempster should have been immediately ejected.  Joe Girardi had a very legitimate point at the time, and continued with very intelligent observations afterwards (where, paraphrased, he said that Dempster was a union rep, should have known better, and if he had a problem with the process of his own players’ union the time and place was elsewhere, not on a nationally televised game).

So, yeah, Alex Rodriguez did earn sympathy there.  How poetic was his home-run later in the game?  Were it me, I would have milked it for everything it was worth, making it a poster child for every egregious home-run celebration.  Bat flip, slow trot, kisses to the stands, fist pumps and multiple pointing to the sky.  But that’s just me.

Boswell doesn’t really say much about the question other than stating the obvious about the athlete and the situation.

Q: Wouldn’t it be better to show up the Braves by actually beating them once in a while, rather than throwing at them?

A: Not the point.  As I posted in this space over the weekend, there’s a code in the game that the Nats, for some unknown reason, were not keeping to.  Kudos to Stephen Strasburg for finally standing up for his own.  It has nothing to do with wins or losses on the field, it has to do with protecting yours.  Boswell says the Justin Upton plunking was done perfectly, but then questions the ejection for what a lot of people thought were just very wild pitches to Andrelton Simmons.

Q: Why did the Nats not keep Oliver Perez?

A: Who said it was just the Nats decision?  Oliver Perez piched as a starter for our AA team in 2011 and then signed another minor league deal with Seattle for 2012.  Only then he converted to a reliever and has had success since.  We don’t really know what happened; maybe the Nats offered to keep him but wouldn’t promise a AAA spot or a spring training invite.  Maybe Perez saw our rotation for 2012 and thought Seattle would give him a better shot at a MLB job.  Honestly I don’t remember a single word at the time indicating that either side wanted a 2012 deal.  Perez was good but not great in AA for us in 2011 (3-5, 3.09 ERA. 1.3 whip in 15 starts), far less than a guy who was once a very effective MLB starter.  Maybe we just though he was washed up.  Boswell questions whether a guy with a 4.25 ERA is even worth discussing.  Fair point

Q: Who would the Nationals “third-string” catcher be? If, for instance, Suzuki got injured and Ramos pinch-hit. -Who would be the preferred position player to pitch if they ran out of pitchers? 

A: Great question.  3rd string catcher?  I have no idea, maybe Steve Lombardozzi.  I do remember the team saying that despite Bryce Harper‘s youth position being predominantly catcher that he was not an option.  Pitcher?  Boy, another who knows.   I can’t remember a single positional player who has taken the mound for the Nats since they moved here.  The best guess would be a utility guy, either Lombardozzi or Scott Hairston.  Boswell guesses the same names I do.

Q: Do you think the Nats will make a serious effort to keep him next year? (I’m already writing off 2013) I’m sure he wants to play every day, but given Ramos’ physical issues that isn’t out of the question.

A: Kurt Suzuki is gone.  His $8.5M option for next year is way, way too much for what he has become; a once-a-week catcher.  Even given Wilson Ramos‘ fragility, you just can’t waste money at the backup catcher position.  Look for a 2014 spring training fight between Sandy Leon and Jhonatan Solano for the #2 catcher spot, and look for the team to add a lot of depth in the minor league ranks in the off-season.  Boswell notes the horrific catcher ERA of Suzuki compared to Ramos, and predicts a minor FA signing this coming off-season.

Q: Is there a more insincere human being in sports than A-Rod? Has he always been like this?

A: The above answer was my weekly quota of Alex Rodriguez discussion.  I will say this though; how do you really KNOW that A-rod is an “insincere human being?”  Do you know him personally?  Or are you just following the media narrative?  Boswell makes a good point; the damage he’s done to the game outweighs any sympathy you could have for him.

Q: You’ve said in the past the Nats would return to their career averages…eventually. Are the Nats reverting to their mean, or is this the new mean?

A: If 2012 was the high, maybe 2013 is the low.  Lets hope for somewhere in the middle for 2014.  Hell, i’ll settle for league average.  I did a quick little runs-scored analysis at the end of June that showed where the Nats record would have been if they had a league-average offense (tied for 1st place) or their 2012 offense (best record in majors).  You could quibble with the math, but I think we all know what has let down the team this year.  Boswell summarizes many of the same points I made … and then has some great stats isolating the bench’s collapse this year.

Q: Given Haren’s performance since returning from the DL, does Rizzo make him a qualifying offer for 2014?

A: Good question.  I just don’t see how you can give Dan Haren a qualifying offer.  The Q.O.  amount is going to increase; lets assume its $14M/year.  Would you give a guy with this stat line $14M?  7-11, 4.79 ERA?  Probably not (those are his season numbers).  His last 8 games (since coming off D/L?)  3-2, 2.25 ERA.   Yeah, that’s worthy of a Q.O.   Maybe the team avoids having to make a decision and flips him to someone needing a starter for September, since he passed through waivers.  That’d be advantageous to Haren too, meaning his signing next off-season won’t have compensation associated with it.  In any case, I think the performance of Taylor Jordan has clearly made Haren expendible, giving as good as or better performance for 1/26th the cost.  Use that $13M towards some hitting.  Boswell says no.

Q: When does Drew Storen replace Soriano as the Nats closer?  (After another blown save).

A: When Soriano’s contract is over.  You bought him, you’ve gotta use him.  Rafael Soriano‘s m.o. was always “good when he’s the closer, sullen underperformer when not.”  He was a poor signing when they got him, and continues to be wasted money.  But hey, its not my money.  Boswell agrees.

Q: When Magic Johnson’s group purchased the Dodgers, he was going to fire Mattingly, whom you said would be a very good manager. Does he still want to fire Donnie, now that the Dodgers have gone 42-8, the best MLB win stread in 100 years? Would you like to see him managing the Nats?

A: Well of course Don Mattingly isn’t going to be fired; he’s now neck and neck with Clint Hurdle for manager of the year.  I don’t have a good sense for what kind of manager he is; after Davey Johnson‘s laissez-faire attitude I know what kind of manager I do want; I want someone with some emotion.  Girardi proved a lot to me last night; lighting into an umpire who failed to control the game.  That’s the kind of emotion I want in my skipper.  Boswell gives some good managerial candidates.

Q: Who are the young pitchers the Nats thing are coming soon?

A: From AAA on downwards, here’s a few starters to keep an eye on: Nathan Karns, A.J. Cole, Robbie Ray, Taylor Hill, Sammy Solis, Matthew Purke, Blake Schwartz, Jake Johansen, Austin Voth and Lucas Gilioto.   Almost every guy on this list has performed well and/or earned a promotion in 2013.   Boswell points some of these guys out and then mentions that we need to produce some hitting too.

Q: Should I be worried that the Nats are going to become the new Caps, a talented team who just lacks the discipline to get it done when it matters?

A: No, because at its heart this is still the same basic team of guys who nearly won 100 games last year.  They need a new voice in the skipper’s office, one who reverses the course of Johnson and who properly motivates them.  Boswell says not to judge a team because of 3/4’s of one disappointing season.

Q: Zim’s surgically-repaired shoulder clearly affected his throwing this year — whether physically or mentally. However, his power numbers at the plate are down too, and we haven’t seen his usual late summer hot streak. Do you think his shoulder affected his hitting? If so, what’s the prognosis for next year for Zim’s hitting?

A: If his shoulder really is/was as bad as everyone seems to think, then yeah you can derive all sorts of bad performance indicators from it.  Next year?  Who knows; he should be healthy.  Of course, he was promised to be healthy by spring training of THIS year.  It takes me back to what I now perceive as disinformation from the team about the whole shoulder issue from the onset.  Either way, I think he’s playing 3B for this team in 2014 no matter what (well, unless the team somehow unloads Adam LaRoche).  Boswell shows some good stats showing Zimmerman’s consistency over the years, then goes on to rave about Jayson Werth.

Q: Will baseball be ruined by the addition of instant replay or have the times changed?

A: I think times have changed.  But from all accounts, the implementation will be typical of everything MLB does; half-done, ham-handed, inefficient and not going nearly as far as its counterparts.  Boswell isn’t a fan.

Q: With two years under his belt, he has a 3.00 ERA and a pretty good 27-19 record. He doesn’t hit 100 mph anymore. He hasn’t proven so far to be anything better than mediocre in the clutch. Not a bad track record, of course, but not anywhere near great. He’s 25 years old now. Is it time to adjust expectations?

A: Is this a baiting question?   Quotes ERA and W/L record as the sole ways to evaluate a pitcher (especially a pitcher who hasn’t yet pitched a full season).  What proof is there that he’s “mediocre in the clutch?”  He’s still the highest or 2nd highest average fastball of any starter in the league despite dialing it down, he’s still a league leader in K/9.  His ERA+ is still significantly above average both for this year and for his career.  What more do you want from the guy?  Ask any baseball pundit to give you a list of his top 5 starters in the league and he’s still on it.   Boswell gives some great historical stats, putting Strasburg in pretty elite company thus far.

Q: Why has Bryce Harper not made the 20 year old leap we expected him to? Did the collision with the wall in LA derail his entire season?

A: A fair point; everyone saw his splits pre and post-LA wall.  His lefty splits are abhorrent.  But he hasn’t been the second coming of Mike Trout.  Maybe we just need to appreciate him for what he is right now.  Boswell mirrors what I said.

What would you pay Lincecum in 2014? Photo via SD Dirk flickr via wikipedia

An interesting question was posed in an ESPN chat a while ago that I made a note on to come back to.

Should the Giants offer Tim Lincecum a qualifying offer, or just cut him loose without any compensation ties this coming off season?  And a better question: if you were a GM looking for pitching this coming off-season, what would you offer him?

First some stats.  Lincecum is in the last year of a 2yr/$40.5M deal signed to avoid his last two years of arbitration.  This is on the heels of a 2yr/$23M deal that took out his first two years of arbitration.  He’s already north of $60M in career earnings before hitting his first pure free agent contract.  But he’s at a cross-roads.

Take a look at the progression of his career stat-wise: 2 straight Cy Youngs before even hitting his first year of arbitration (which, if you remember, was a Super-2 year because the Giants apparently cannot read a calendar; this little snafu cost them probably $20M in salary).  He went from an ERA+ of 171 in 2010 to last year’s bottoming out season, where he posted a 68 ERA+, a 5.18 ERA and was pulled from the rotation in favor of Barry Zito (an insult to end all insults) in the playoffs.

Garrett Hooe at FederalBaseball just posted a great analysis as well, including insight into Lincecum’s breakdown of mechanics, his velocity loss and other things.  His analysis is great; no need to replicate it here.

In 2013 he’s regained some of his performance but not enough; he’s still pitching like a 5th/6th starter.  His month-by-month splits give no help: he was decent to good in April, awful in May, decent to good in June, mediocre in July and so far has been lights out in August.  The offensively-challenged Nats just tagged him for 6 runs in 6 innings en route to his 12th loss of the season.

Overall, his velocity is down, he has weird mechanics, and he’s clearly deviating from those weird mechanics as of late.  What GM out there is willing to give him a shot, given those two parameters?  Probably more than a few frankly, given his pedigree, but at what cost?

The answer to the second question (what is his value on the FA market) drives the answer to the first question (whether to offer him a QO).   I went looking for some comparisons from last year’s FA market to try to estimate what his market may be this coming off season and found the following data points of interest:

• Freddie Garcia pitched to an 80 ERA+ (matching Lincecum’s in 2013) but had a 5.18 ERA in New York.  He’s also older (35 versus 29).  He signed a combo minor/major league deal that pays him $1.3M this year.
• Dan Haren had an 89 ERA+, as 12-13 record with a 4.33 ERA last year and signed a one-year, $13M deal with the Nats.    But he was a near Cy Young winner just two years prior and was hurt most of 2012 (that was what we kept telling ourselves when we all talked ourselves into this signing anyway).
• Jorge de la Rosa, coming off a lost season to injury but a great 2011, signed a 1 year $11M deal.
• Joe Saunders pitched to a 101 ERA+ between two teams, is slightly older and is almost the definition of a MLB average pitcher (career ERA+: exactly 100.  career ERA: 4.20).  He signed a 1yr $6.5M deal with Seattle.
• Speaking of MLB average guys; Gavin Floyd also owns a career ERA+ of 100, and had exactly that for the White Sox in 2012.  His contract?  1yr, $9.5M.
• Jason Marquis was awful last year; 8-11 with a 5.22 ERA and a 72 ERA+.  He got a 1year $3M deal to come back to San Diego and regain value.  Fun fact: Marquis is a career 94 ERA+ pitcher, has a career ERA over 4.50, has a CAREER bWAR of 5.5 (that’s about half of what Mike Trout had in bWAR just last season) and yet has more than $50 million in career earnings.  Wow.  I’m in the wrong business.
• Joe Blanton was pretty awful for two teams in 2012, going 10-15 with a 4.71 ERA, yet somehow earned a 2yr/$15M contract extension from the Angels.  Blanton, by the way, is 2-13 this year.  I’m not sure how exactly Blanton got anything more than a couple million dollars, to say nothing of a 2 year contract.  I question the sanity of the Angels management.

Ok.  So using these examples from last year’s FA market … uh, I have no idea what Lincucum is worth.  I’d say he’s better than Blanton, so that mean’s he’s better than $7.5M/year.   But that was such an awful contract that I don’t see how you can use it as a benchmark. Meanwhile, if Gavin Floyd’s consistency year over year is  worth $9.5M, then how do you value the possible jeckyl and hyde that you’re going to get from Lincecum?

If I was a GM, looking at his body of work and his last two seasons, I probably would end up somewhere between Floyd’s $9.5M and de la Rosa’s $11M on a one-year deal.  As they say, there are no bad one-year deals, and if it goes south its just money.  1year, $10M on a career-saving flier taken by some NL team out there willing to roll the dice and spend some cash.

Probably not the Nationals though, not after the Haren experience and considering what Taylor Jordan has given the team in a 5th starter role this year.  You’d have to think Mike Rizzo heads into the off-season with his 3 big guns under contract, his 4th guy Ross Detwiler on the mend, with Jordan penciled into the 5th starter and with the likes of Nathan Karns, Taylor Hill, and Caleb Clay providing the first line of reinforcements in AAA.

So I predict the Giants will not offer him a qualifying offer, thus cutting ties with one of their most iconic players in the last 25 years.  It will be a sad time in San Francisco head-shops everywhere.

(Slow news week; i’m posting some posts that have been sitting in draft mode for a while).

As mentioned in my previous baseball movie review, we’re a bit behind on watching movies.  If it weren’t for DVRs, I don’t think we’d have any idea what was going on in the modern entertainment world.  After writing the review of the movie 42, I suddenly remembered that we also recently saw Clint Eastwood‘s Trouble with the Curve.  So lets dive in with a review.

Story and Acting: I did not like the story, all in all.

Yes, we get it.  Moneyball (and Billy Beane) invented modern stats-based scouting.  But did it have to be so ham-handedly rammed down our throats?  The entire storyline revolves around the fact that Eastwood’s character is an old-school baseball scout, and he’s old.  Meanwhile the scouting office is apparently run by an uber stat-guy (played by Matthew Lillard, currently starring in the new series The Bridge on AMC) who has the ear of the owner.  But lets face it; if you’ve got a top 3 first round pick, we’re talking millions of dollars and a significant portion of your franchise’s near-immediate future at stake.  You’re not just sending one scout; you’re sending your area scout, your cross checker, your scouting director and your General Manager.

Not to mention, you absolutely cannot depend on stats alone when scouting high school players.  There’s so much variation in talent between teams, even in good baseball areas, that statistics are completely deceiving.  Keith Law mentioned a time where he went to a HS game in Georgia to scout a guy and, during warmups, the opposing team had a 3rd baseman who literally could not throw the ball across the diamond.  The prospect’s team was ahead 15-0 after three innings and the slaughter rule was put into effect.  What value would those stats have for that prospect, good or bad?  College guys are favorites of sabre-slanted scouting directors because there’s a known body of work.  If a guy plays in (say) the SEC, you know what kind of competition he plays against on a week in/week out basis and can properly judge his stat line.

The story needlessly made the star slugger an arrogant, entitled jerk.  He could just as well have been portrayed as a shy kid who wasn’t aware of his own skills or limitations.  The villian wasn’t the draftee; it was the front office executive who undermined Eastwood.  I guess the counter argument would be that if the draftee wasn’t a bad kid he’d have to be a good kid, and then you’d be rooting for him and against Eastwood’s interpretation of his limitations.

Did the Amy Adams character have to be undermined by a younger, whiter guy?  Did they have to add in blatant sexism to this story?  Couldn’t have Adam’s character just taken off from work with some implicit pushback from management in order to make the story work?

Another problem: do we really think that scouts “keep tabs” on “their guys” after they start playing?  If you’re an area scout in the rural mid-atlantic, you don’t have time to take in random minor league games to track your players.  You’re on the road every day scouting players and burning the road trying to get to the next game.  I found that to be somewhat unbelievable.

I’m not even bothering to mention the Justin Timberlake character, whose inclusion added nothing except a cheap romance storyline for the ladies.  I guess that’s a good enough reason.

Lastly, what did the “finding of the janitor” have to do with this story?  That made no sense; you could have made the point that the high draft pick couldn’t hit a curveball  just as easily by having him whiffing on curveballs being thrown by a BP pitcher.  After watching the climactic scene you could have easily have asked, “well is he missing the curve because its so amazing, or because he can’t hit a curve?”   I suppose the plot device was there to enable the Adams character an out of her lawyer job, serving as the janitor’s agent.

Baseball Sequences:

The climax of the movie is about a scouting sublety; watching a hitter’s hands moving when he’s faced with a breaking pitch.  This leads to the title of the movie and to the prospect’s downfall at the end.  That’s great and all, but difficult to show, especially in an actor playing a baseball player and not a player himself.

I’d be curious to see the draftee’s stat line in this movie; he seemed to go 15-15 with 15 homers in play sequences.  I guess it wasn’t enough to just show this kid getting hits; he had to be the best slugger of all time in po-dunk North Carolina or wherever they were supposed to be playing.

Otherwise, there really wasn’t much actuall baseball to watch here; it was a “baseball movie” in topic only.

Conclusion:

A poor movie.  I’m surprised Eastwood came out of acting retirement so that he could reprise his Gran Torino gruffy, grunting character and put him on a baseball field instead of a run down neighborhood in Detroit.  I like Eastwood, I like his movies and wanted to like this one.  But I just could not.

I know its probably been a few months (years?) since you’ve seen the movie, but what did you guys think?

I usually don’t do post-season award analysis until, well, the post-season.  But this year the MVP races seem like they could end up being really interesting.  So lets take a look at who’s in the hunt.

The MVP candidates year in and year out generally are chosen by the voters using these criterion (fair or not):

1. Best player on the Best teams
2. Outstanding performances from players on non-playoff teams.
3. Generally position players, except in a year when no position player really stands out.
4. East Coast Bias.

I’m not going to get into an argument about whether the “MVP” means the “best player” or “most valuable” here.  I’ll leave that to the multitude of other people who can’t get over this distinction.  For me, the “MVP” still is a subjective award not entirely driven by the guy with the best WAR on the season.  There are plenty who cannot get over the fact that Mike Trout had s uch a fantastic statistical season last year and didn’t win the MVP.  Not me; I don’t see how you can be the “MVP” of a league when your team finishes 20 games out of first.

If the season ended today, your 5 playoff teams per league would be:

• NL: Divisional Winners Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles with St. Louis and Cincinnati meeting in the wild card game.
• AL: Divisional winners Boston, Detroit and Oakland with Tampa Bay and Texas meeting in the wild card game.

The NL playoff picture seems mostly set; the two wild card leaders have a decent lead on Arizona that seems, well not insurmountable but surprisingly strong.  The AL picture is a bit more unsettled; lots can still  happen in the AL East, and there’s three teams within 4.5 games of the wild card right now (Cleveland, Baltimore and Kansas City).  And that’s to say nothing of the Yankees, who are in the hunt but seem more of a sideshow these days than a contender.

So, using these guidelines, lets look at the leading players that are likely to be in the MVP race.  All stats are as of 8/10/13.  Per team, lets look at the “leading” player both statistically and “honorarily.”

Lets start with the NL:

• Atlanta: Andrelton Simmons leads the team in bWAR, with almost all of it coming on the defensive side of the ball.   He’s hitting .243 and your voter base just doesn’t have an appreciation for defensive exploits just quite yet.  Justin Upton started out scorching hot and still has great stats on the year, but has cooled so significantly that I don’t believe Atlanta has an MVP candidate.  They have 4-5 really solid hitters and solid pitching driving them to their divisional title.
• Pittsburgh: it begins and ends with Andrew McCutchen, a serious leader for the award right now.  He’s tied for the league lead in bWAR and is having an outstanding season.  Starling Marte has broken out this year but nobody denies that this is McCutchen’s team.  Pedro Alvarez leads the NL in homers but is otherwise good, but not great, in other offensive statistics.
• Los Angeles Dodgers: Yasiel Puig leads the team’s hitters in bWAR while taking the league by storm, but he’s only slightly ahead of Hanley Ramirez, who is having a relatively quiet break through season.  But neither guy has played in half the team’s games, leaving a lot of pundits to call for Clayton Kershaw, who is tied with McCutchen for the NL lead in bWAR to get MVP votes.  While I don’t advocate this scenario, it would not surprise me to see Kershaw win the Cy Young and get a top-5 MVP finish.
• St Louis: Yadier Molina continues to be the transcendent catcher in the NL and is the “spiritual leader” of the Cardinals, but he has gone down with injury and may be losing MVP steam.  He no longer even leads his own team in bWAR (Matt Carpenter does), but remains a good candidate.
• Cincinnati: the obvious candidate here is Joey Votto, But something seems like Cincinnati’s scuffling as of late combined with the flashier candidates out there will lead to Votto getting votes but not the award.

Other NL Candidates to consider:

• Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt is in the top-10 in league bWAR for the Diamondbacks, but unless this team makes a huge run to the playoffs he’s merely going to be a top-10 vote getter.
• Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez is tied for the league lead in bWAR, but his streakiness and his team’s place in the standings is going to make it tough for him to get anything other than a top 10 finish.
• New York‘s David Wright is also putting together a great season, sitting in the top 10 in league bWAR almost entirely on the back of his bat (surprising given his prowness at third).  As with Gomez, the Mets position in the standings hurts him badly.  And his recent D/L trip (which seems like it may end his season) ends his chances.

My opinion of the NL voting right now: McCutchen, Kershaw, Molina, Votto, Gomez.

Over in the American league, the playoff situation may be murky, but the MVP race is pretty straight-forward.  There is a lot to shake out in terms of the playoff positions and the candidates from those teams don’t seem to stand out as much.  But as with 2012, there are two leading MVP candidates and we seem set to have the same arguments this year as last.  But lets go team by team:

• Boston is being led by their two best players, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia.  They are both top-10 in bWAR and are having excellent seasons.  Voters likely won’t be able to tell between them and they’ll split the vote with both guys getting top-10 MVP seasons.
• Detroit: Is there any question?  Miguel Cabrera, who despite negative defensive bWAR is leading the AL.  Max Scherzer will get serious Cy Young consideration but not MVP votes, not with Cabrera and other candidates.
• Oakland: Jody Donaldson has become the latest “who is that?” player that Oakland has found to drive them to a pennant in a division they have no business competing in.  But east-coast bias and lack of star-power will work against him.
• Tampa Bay: It has to be Evan Longoria, once again, the face of the franchise.  But as with year’s past, he’s toiling in relative obscurity in front of half the fans that should be supporting a team this good.  And a lot of credit will go towards Wil Myers‘ call-up, taking away Longoria votes.
• Texas: the story of Adrian Beltre‘s career; he’s a darn good player and nobody gives him enough credit.  Texas has shed many of its name players over the past few seasons, but Beltre continues to provide great value on both sides of the ball.  The transcendant player on Texas this year is Yu Darvish, who will struggle in the Cy Young race (subject of anohter post).

Other AL Candidates to consider:

• Baltimore may very well sneak into a WC slot as they did last year, entirely on the backs of two guys.  Chris Davis is having a great power season while Manny Machado is having a historic 20-year old season in general.  Both guys have top-10 bWAR seasons and, as with the Boston guys, may split votes here.  Machado in particular looks like he’s already put himself in the “Trout-Harper” discussion for most transcendent young player in the game.
• Los Angeles Angels: Here we go again.  Mike Trout has put “sophomore slump” naysayers to shame, posting as good or better numbers across the board in 2013.  Interestingly, Trout’s defensive component in 2013 is significantly hurting him whereas in 2012 it gave him a huge boost; his defensive component in bWAR is actually *negative* for 2013.  A topic for another day, the ridiculous swings we see in defensive advanced stats.  In any case, as with 2012 I think Trout’s team’s underperforming will hurt him and he will lose out again.  It is what it is.

My opinion of the AL voting right now: Cabrera, Trout, and then I have no idea.  Right now I’d probably go Machado, Ellsbury and Davis.

There’s still a lot of season to go, so lots could still happen. But I’m putting early markers on McCutchen and Cabrera. Both well deserved.

All A-Rod, all the time. Photo John Munson/The Star-Ledger via nj.com

I’ve got Alex Rodriguez over-load.

Here’s links that summarize the past week’s rumors and activities in the A-Rod case: first he was going to get banned for life, then we were down to MLB “seeking” to ban him for life, then MLB and A-Rod were negotiating a suspension, then he faced a minimum 214-game suspension, then officially it was a 211-game ban, which of course he immediately appealed.

So, what do I think of all of this?

Honestly, I’m happy A-rod is fighting this.   You know why?   Because I want to see exactly what evidence MLB has here.  MLB basically went out and BOUGHT this evidence, they went out of their way to pursue via a sketchy legal strategy the Biogenesis guys in order to get evidence with which to pursue these players.  Something about that just doesn’t sound kosher to me.  Clearly the evidence is compelling (why else would have Ryan Braun and the 12 other players just rolled over and accepted their suspensions?) .. but its all secret right now.  I hope A-Rod forces discovery and forces this evidence and all the mechanisms that went into procuring it to the light.

If he (or any of these other 12 players who just accepted suspensions) used the substances, where’s the proof?  Are there positive tests?   Why is it “bad” for A-Rod to attempt to cover things up but its “ok” for MLB to pay to “uncover” the evidence?

I mean, don’t get me wrong,  I’m certainly not excusing A-rod here, nor do I think he’s clean.  But something is just not right about the lengths to which MLB is going after the guy.  There’s a CBA in place with pre-agreed upon punishment for PED violations; 50 games for one positive test, 100 games for two.   How does MLB arrive at exactly “211” games?  Where is that number in the CBA?  Plus there’s this: so far we have ZERO positive tests for any of these guys, and they all seem to be just taking well timed suspensions so as to either a) be able to get back for the playoffs or b) not extend into 2014 if possible so their free agency market isn’t impacted.

Initially he was to be “banned for life.”  For what??  Pete Rose gambled on the outcome of games in which he was a participant.  Members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox fixed and threw games to for profit.  Those are “ban for life” types of offenses.  Steve Howe‘s “lifetime ban” only followed SEVEN different suspensions, all for known test failures, and even that “lifetime ban” was rescinded.  How is whatever A-Rod could have possibly done here on the same level as these situations?  Doesn’t this seem like MLB and Bud Selig in particular are specifically going after Alex Rodriguez?

I dunno.  Maybe its because I detest Selig and everything he and his cronies do to the sport I love.  Maybe its because I detest how Baseball operates with its little backroom deals and constant deceptions about finances and player movement.  Maybe its this ridiculous anti-trust exemption that has outlived its legal usefulness for about 50 years yet continues to protect the interests of multi-millionare team owners.

I’m entirely convinced Selig is colluding as we speak with the Yankees owners to ban A-Rod.  I’m entirely convinced Selig coordinated league wide collusion to get Barry Bonds out of the game (Bonds had a 169 OPS+ in his final season; you mean to tell me there was NO team that could have used his bat, even on a free agency flier?  B.S.)  Selig enabled a huckster in Frank McCourt to run the Dodgers into the ground and still profit by hundreds of millions of dollars.  Selig enabled Jeffrey Loria to destroy a baseball market inside of 2 years, and this after Selig gifted the Florida franchise to Loria and allowed him to pillage the Montreal franchise on the way out.   Selig continues to inexplicably force the Oakland A’s to play in an awful stadium in order to protect San Jose “territory rights” that Oakland themselves GAVE to San Francisco years ago.  And it was Selig who gave this sweetheart/ridiculously short sighted MASN TV deal to placate Peter Angelos which is now, in a completely predictable turn of events, locked in a stalemate with the two sides $100M off.  Baseball teams cry about poverty but privately make tens of millions of dollars on the backs of tax payers in publicly funded stadiums.  It is entirely slimy and reprehensible.

Slimy and reprehensible.  Just like A-Rod, in all likelihood.

Maybe I shouldn’t care at all; two sides, each slimier than the next, duking it out to preserve, what exactly?  A-Rod’s incredibly over-paid salary?  A-rod’s “place” in the history of the sport, long since destroyed along with every other hall-of-fame calibre player form the last 30 years?  The sanctity of the game, long since lost at the altar of home runs in the late 90s and early 2000s?  Or is it the zealotry of a manipulative commissioner who works at the behest of and makes decisions driven by cheapskate-but-millionare owners trying to save a buck or two while trying to save themselves from themselves?

A bit cynical, I am about this.

Robinson’s most iconic moment; stealing home in the 1955 World Series.

So, one thing we’ve noticed about having a kid is how our television and movie watching habits have changed.  Here’s a summary:

1. We never go out to movies anymore.

2. We watch about 30 minutes of something between the time we get him down at night and the time we have to go to bed and collapse from exhaustion.

3. If we do rent a movie …  it is something that came out months ago and is either on HBO or on-demand for $5 bucks.  We watch it in 30 minute increments around his sleep schedule.

So, given the above parameters, we just finished watching the movie 42, which chronicles Jackie Robinson‘s breaking of the color barrier in Baseball in the mid 1940s.   Some Links about the topic: IMDB’s movie page, Jackie Robinson’s Wikipedia page and Robinson’s Baseball-Reference page.

Here’s what I thought.

Story and Acting: My wife enjoyed the movie moreso than I did; perhaps it is because of the “love interest” storyline between Jackie and his wife, or perhaps it is because she doesn’t know the whole story of Robinson.  I knew, for example, that Robinson won the Rookie of the Year award in his debut season and a subsequent MVP award, so someone who doesn’t know Robinson’s history would watch the latter half of the movie regarding his MLB debut and maintain some suspense as to how he performed.  The various players just sort of allude to Robinson’s talent level here or there; never letting on just how good of a player he is.

Robinson’s relationship with his wife is a large feature on the movie.  I have no idea how pertinent this is to the man and this story, having not yet read one of the many Jackie Robinson books out there (the most frequently mentioned being Baseball’s Greatest Experiment by Jules Tygiel and Opening Day by Jonathan Eig, not to mention the fact that Robinson seems to have penned at least 4 autobiographies).  But enough emphasis is given that at one point my wife asked, “He doesn’t frigging cheat on her, does he?”  Perhaps a statement on our low expectations of professional athletes in the modern world, thanks to the travails of stars like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.

Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey might be the best acting job I’ve ever seen him perform outside of Witness or The Fugitive.  I thought Ford was washed up as an actor, but he played a compelling, complex Rickey character who at times was using Robinson’s debut both as a money-grabbing ploy and a morality play.  The two relatively unknown actors playing Jackie and Rachel Robinson were fantastic, all things considered.  Chadwick Boseman and Nicole Beharie both gave excellent performances.

The story itself, as tends to happen, left out some details.  It had to, in order to fit into a 2 hour time period.  I wish they would have spent more time discussing Robinson’s college and military background; he was an absolutely fantastic all-around athlete, winning varsity letters at UCLA in FOUR different sports.  Instead the movie seemed to imply that Robinson had been kicked out of the military (which did not occur) and barely mentioned his background prior to his being plucked out of the Negro Leagues in Birmingham.  Fair enough; Robinson’s legacy had to do with baseball, not his collegiate football accomplishments.

Baseball Sequences: Unlike some baseball movies we’ve seen, at least the pitchers looked like they could pitch in this movie.  Boseman’s ability to look natural at the plate was nearly convincing; per his biography he’s an athlete who still plays basketball.  As it turned out though, they didn’t really have to show a ton of baseball footage despite this film’s title subject; most of this story was to bring to the screen the oppressive and unbelievable racism prevalent in the mid 1940s and to subsequently show how the Robinsons faced it.  Nowhere was this more prevalent or obvious than in the first Brooklyn-Philadelphia game, where the opposing manager (Ben Chapman) stood on the field and hurled insult after insult at Robinson in what seemed like pure racism, but was later explained away as “gamesmanship” by the coach.

Unfortunately, the best baseball sequences didn’t appear until the credits started to roll, where what looked like B-film capturing the players making diving stops in the field appear in slow motion.  Perhaps it is fitting that the baseball action is limited; this isn’t really a “baseball story” like The Natural or Major League is; it does not depend on believable baseball action to make its point.  Robinson could walk and triumphantly trot to first base and it can appear as a monumental moral statement.

Some clarifications on the legacy of early black players: the movie implies that the Dodgers were considering Robinson, Roy Campanella and Satchel Paige to be the first player to integrate.  What’s left unsaid is that the real “star” of the Negro Leagues at the time was Josh Gibson.  Also interesting to me was the fact that a second black player named Johnny Wright was signed in early 1946 and played in the minors the same season that Robinson debued.  I didn’t necessarily know this, but Larry Doby broke the color barrier in the American League just a couple months after Robinson did, to very little fan fare (see this list on Wikipedia of the earliest black players by date and team).  I only mention this because the film post-credits say that (paraphrased) Robinson paved the way for black athletes like Campanella and Don Newcombe.  That’s true: Campanella and Newcombe were the next two black players to play for Brooklyn, but not in the major leagues.

Conclusion: Decent movie.   Probably will never watch it again.  I may be in the minority though; the film grossed nearly $100M and now stands as the 2nd highest grossing baseball film ever made.   I’m not sure i’ve got it in my top 10 baseball movies of all time, but it may slide into contention for best baseball-related drama.  I’ll keep it in mind the next time I update my Baseball Movie post.

What did you guys think?

Denard Span is catching a lot of criticism right now. Photo: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

Well, Phil Mickelson came out of nowhere to take the British Open over the weekend, NFL training camps are coming up soon and the Nats just got swept anemically at home.  I wonder how many baseball questions there are in this week’s ask Tom Boswell chat?  Lets find out.

As always, I answer here before reading Boswell’s response, only take his baseball/Nats questions and edit those questions for clarity.

Q: Is one of the reasons for the Nats malaise because they know Johnson is a short timer?

A: The implication of the question is this: if Davey Johnson suggests a change, the player says, “Eh, you’re gone by the end of the season, why should I listen to you?”  I have a hard time believing this for two reasons:

1. I’m not convinced there’s that much “coaching” going on in the majors.  Especially for veterans.  These guys are professionals, they’ve been playing professional baseball for years.  If you don’t know how to bunt, or how to field by the time you’ve made the majors then I don’t think you’re ever going to get it.  Maybe I’m wrong.

2. I’m also not convinced that managers really have that much to do with a game’s being won or lost.  Yes, disastrous bullpen decisions can back fire.  But its still on the hitters to hit, the starters to pitch, the fielders to make plays.

Related to #2; word came out today that the Nats have fired hitting coach Rick Eckstein.  Is this sort of like firing the secretary when the entire office puts out bad work?  Johnson was really upset by it and said so in the media … and I don’t have any doubt that this is a reactionary move to the poor offensive numbers.  But ask yourself; what is a new hitting coach going to do to turn this team of hitters around between now and September 30th?

Boswell gives Johnson lots of credit in 2012 for instilling confidence in the youngsters and garnering more respect out of the veterans (in comparison to Jim Riggleman). 

Q: Suzuki, Soriano, LaRoche. Any reason the Nats shouldn’t be sellers this year?

A: The Nats will not sell.  Because that would be Mike Rizzo admitting that all his moves last off-season were wrong.  And he’s not going to admit that.

Lets play the what-if game though; what if the Nats were to become sellers.  First guys on the block are FAs in their last (or only) year.  We only have a couple of those guys: Kurt Suzuki, Dan Haren and Chad Tracy.  Look at that list and ask yourself who would want these guys and what they’d be willing to give up?  Even newly acquired Scott Hairston is signed through 2014.  But then again, teams are smarter and generally won’t give up good prospects anymore for rentals.

One last point: the Red Sox blew a 9 game lead in September two years ago.  The Nats are only 7 out of the division lead, even playing as poorly as they have.  It’s still just mid July.

Boswell says wait until July 31st.  And interestingly he criticizes the Denard Span acquisition. 

Q: Can we get rid of Span?

A: Ironic that Boswell took this question right after killing him.  I have always thought that the Span acquisition was Rizzo being too clever, too focused on defense.  And so far it looks like the critics were right.  Span is posting an 86 OPS+ right now.  His OBP is about the same as the guy we had to jettison to make room for him (Michael Morse).   Except Morse at any moment can hit the ball 430 feet; it’d take Span 3 swings to get it that far.  To say nothing of driving out a fan favorite/good clubhouse guy.

Can we get rid of him?  Nope.  Stuck with him and most of this team through next season.  But, at that point he seems tailor made to flip to bring up someone like Brian Goodwin.

Boswell says that Bernadina isn’t the answer.

Q: Isn’t it galling to the team that Rafael Soriano acts differently on the mound — e.g., windup vs. stretch — depending on whether or not it is a save situation?

A: The word on Rafael Soriano wasn’t positive before he got here, and the whole “shirt untuck” seems to smack of showing people up.  And it’s clear to me that he’s a “Save snob;” look no further than his numbers in 2010, 2011 and 2012.  In2010 as a closer in Tampa?  226 ERA+.  The next year as a setup guy in New York?  4.12 era.  Then when Mariano Rivera goes down and he gets the closer job in 2012?  Back to being excellent.  If he purposely pitches differently in save vs non-save situations?  I’d be really, really pissed as a player.  But luckily the stats don’t support it; his ERA in non-save situations is better than in save situations, by a lot.  Boswell says that Soriano’s behavior is being noticed.  great.

Q: Should we start platooning Span with Hairston?

A: Is this what it’s come to with Span?  That we’re talking about platooning him with a guy hitting .170?  Yes Hairston’s lefty splits are good … but come on.  It isn’t like he’s an all-star slugger.  At least span brings plus-plus defense to center.  Bat him 8th, where his damage is limited.  Boswell says Yes its time to platoon.

Q: Everybody says Nats Park can’t get an All-Star Game because the surrounding area isn’t developed enough. But how does that explain sites like Busch Stadium (their development plan is further behind than ours), Angel Stadium (surrounded by parking lots and freeways), or Citi Field (surrounded by parking lots, a subway line, and a junkyard)?

A: Great question.  Maybe Bud Selig hasn’t seen all the development going on.  Or maybe Ted Lerner just don’t want to get on his knees and beg for it before the omnipowerful commissioner.  I do think its kind of ridiculous that baseball has chosen to return to parks that have previously hosted before giving a game to every new park.    Boswell doesn’t really answer.

Q: How good has Gio been over the past two months?

A: Before his 6 shutout/11k outing last weekend Gio Gonzalez had won 4 straight starts.  The worst of them was a 6 2/3 3 run performance that the team won easily anyway.  Maybe he’s pitching to score (ooh, don’t say that too loudly, the sabre nerds get all pissed).  Yeah he’s pitching great.  Boswell agrees.

Q: Should Krol start working later in games?

A: I’m still not entirely convinced Ian Krol can be more than a loogy.  Every time i’ve seen him, he’s been a one-pitch/one-trick guy.  I’ve literally never seen him throw his off-speed stuff for strikes.  Luckily the deception and velocity on his fastball are good enough to let him ride to a very good season statistically so far.  I’d stick with what we’re doing now; using him and Fernando Abad as situational relievers and leaving the hard work for Clippard and Soriano.  Drew Storen?  Now that’s another story.  Boswell says give him more work.

Q: I’ve seen a recent increase in the criticism of Davey Johnson’s managerial decisions. I can’t believe fans are blaming him for where the Nats currently stand. I put the blame on the players. It’s execution that’s at fault. Right? What else could/should Davey do that he hasn’t already tried?

A: Stop using poor relievers.  Stop pulling effective starters after 90 pitches.  Stop batting Span 1st and drop him to 8th where he belongs.  That’s what I’d do.  Boswell shared some ancedotes.

Q: I was so in favor of the Span acquisition, now it just looks horrible. Do you think he can get back to the .392 On Base Percentage he has in 2009 or is he really a .317 OBP guy? Will this team ever solve CF and lead off?

A: Just had this discussion with someone over email.  He does look horrible at the plate.  But he plays a great center field!  Rizzo just had to have his center fielder; well now you have him, and the guy he displaced (Mores) has about the same OBP this year as Span.  To go along with 200 points of slugging.  So there’s that.  You say “well Morse has been injured?”  I say sure … he got injured in Seattle.  No reason to assume the same thing would have happened here.  We gave up Morse’s power in the middle of the order and moved a perfectly capable defender (Harper) off center to acquire Span and have him drag down the top of the order.  Can’t do anything about it now (or until 2015 frankly): I say bat him 8th until he proves he deserves to return to the top.   Boswell points out that Span’s OBP is only 1% better than league average.

Q: Should we keep Soriano in the closer role?

A: Pretty much; $11M a year and he’ll be a sullen clubhouse cancer if he’s not closing.   He’s being paid way too much money to flip, even to teams that covet closers.  Well, maybe we can talk to Boston; they seem to be idiots when it comes to paying for closers (as noted in this space).   Boswell also mentions Boston but points out how battle-tested Soriano is, implying he has value.  I’m clearly on the record in my opinion about closers and paying big money for them, disagreed with the acquisition and disagree with Boswell here; if we could trade him, you do it.

Q: Is Jayson Werth immature and/or a hypocrite?

A: You’d have to read the whole question (which clearly implies the opinion of the asker), but there’s some vitriol in there.  I can’t think of any incidents that make me ever put Jayson Werth in the same maturity category as Nyjer Morgan.  I think the questioner is off-base here.  Boswell predictably defends Werth.  I will say this: go look at Werth’s hitting stats this year; he’s been very, very good.

How much live action actually occurs in each major sport?

Note: if you’ve found this and want to make a comment about how football is such a more exiting sport than soccer, or think this is some sort of anti-football post … then you’re missing the point.  This is about LIVE ACTION stats and the viewing experience.  If you love Cricket, you’ll sit there for 5 hour test matches where there’s fractions of periods of real action.  If you love football, then you’ll sit there for hours on end.  That’s not the point here.

Editor Post-publishing Update: this was originally published in July of 2013.  Over the years I have updated this post with additional information, resulting in adjusted numbers from the original.  I’m always looking for more and better information and am all ears if you have links to these kinds of studies.

I’ve never been the biggest NFL fan, despite living in a distinctly football town here in Washington DC.  But in the past few years or so, slowly my patience for watching an entire NFL football broadcast has ended.  Notice how games used to be slated for 1pm and 4pm on Sundays?  Now they’re 1pm and 4:15pm, or maybe even 4:25pm, with seemingly all that extra time now devoted to commercials.  Every time there’s a time-out, a break in play, after every challenge, there’s more commercials.  My friends and I have a joke.  I’ll ask “Hey, what time is the 8:00 game?”  And instead of the answer being obvious … the answer is 8:15 or 8:30 or whenever they’ve now pushed the late Sunday night game thanks to the 4:00 games running late (you know, since they  now start at 4:15 or 4:25 or whenever they’re slated to start).

Ironically, the same distinct lack of action complaint is easily seen in baseball broadcasts.  So I can’t be casting too many hypocritical stones against my football-following brethren (this is a Baseball-focused blog after all).

I got to wondering; just how many frigging commercials do they really show in NFL games these days?  This pursuit led to the larger issue: How often is the ball actually in play in an NFL game?  How often are the fans just sitting there watching crowd shots or replays or pictures of cheerleaders or head coaches looking constipated?

So I started looking far and wide for “Ball in Play” studies for the 5 major professional sports to compare and contrast the TV viewer experience.  Here’s what I’ve found (all sources are listed at the bottom and referenced inline).  For some sports (Hockey and Basketball) it is relatively easy to assume that, if the clock is running, there’s action.  For the others, with either a lack of a clock (Baseball) or significant periods of inactivity while the clock is running (Soccer to some extent but especially in Football) the details are harder to come by.

• Baseball: Per the 2013 WSJ study, Baseball games feature 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action.  Baseball games have been increasing in length (thanks in part to the eighteen annual 4-hour marathons between the glacial Boston Red Sox and equally glacial New York Yankees) over the years.  But, the amount of action has stayed roughly the same.  A 1952 TV broadcast showed about 13 minutes of action but just 9 minutes 45 seconds of commercials. The latest WSJ study found that fully 42 minutes and 41 seconds of between-inning inactivity would be purely commercial time on TV broadcasts.  That means there’s nearly 5 times as many commercials now than 50 years ago.  2015: thanks to new pace of play rules, the average length of a baseball game dropped by 6 minutes from 2014.  2017 update: ESPN published a study of the 2017 playoffs, which have been dragging.  The average MLB playoff game in 2017 has been going 3hrs, 35mins, which is up 10 minutes from 2016 and an astonishing 21 minutes from 2015.  I get that playoffs are more strategic, that pitchers are on quick hooks b/c there’s a finite amount of time, but this 3hrs 35mins is brutal.
• Football: Per the WSJ 2010 study, NFL games feature about 11 minutes of action.  The amount of action in football games has been roughly the same since the early 1900s.  There was roughly 13 1/2 minutes of action in 1912, and slightly less in the 2010 study.  Other studies have shown that football generally ranges between 12-17 minutes of action.  Personally I tracked one quarter of an NFL playoff game  a few years ago with these numbers: in 50 minutes of clock time we saw exactly 250 seconds of action (4 minutes, 10 seconds) accompanied by no less than 20 commercials.  And this turned out to be a relatively “easy” quarter: one time out, one two-minute warning and two challenges/reviews.  It could have been a lot worse.  More recent studies have found that things are worsening for the NFL: WP’s Fred Bowen counted the ads in a 2014 NFL game and had seen an astounding 152 advertisements during the game.  152; that was more ads than plays from scrimmage.  Update for 2015: the early returns on the first few weeks of the season show a huge up-tick in penalties, which have slowed the game by four minutes from 2014 and average times are now at 3hrs 10minutes for games.  2017 update: the NFL has made some tweaks and the average game length through 2 weeks is down significantly, to 3hrs 4mins from 3hrs 15minutes in 2016.
• Basketball: NBA games average 2 hours and 18 minutes in actual time.  Working backwards (since the clock only runs when the ball is in play and we know there’s exactly 48 minutes of play time) we know that there’s 138-48 = 90 minutes of “down time” of some sort in a typical NBA game.  Not all of that is commercial time but all of it is inaction.  I cannot find any documentation of typical number of commercials so i’ve just split the difference between on-screen inaction and off-screen commercials in the table below.  If you’re a big-time NBA watcher and feel this isn’t fair, please comment as such.
• Hockey: The Livestrong piece below (side note: why is Livestrong doing “ball-in-play” studies on Hockey?) quotes average NHL games being 2hours and 19minutes in the 2003-4 season.  Working backwards from this, you have three 20-minute periods and two 17 minute intermissions, which leaves 46 minutes of remaining idle time.  Given that the idle times in Hockey are not nearly as long as those in basketball, I’m going to estimate that about 2/3rds of that 46minutes is commercials.
• Soccer: Per the Soccerbythenumbers.com website 2011 study, between 62 and 65 minutes of ball-in-play action is seen on average in the major European pro leagues per game.  For the table below i’ll use 64 minutes as an average.  The duration of pro soccer games is relatively easy to calculate: they fit neatly into a 2 hour window by virtue of its 45minute halves, 15 minute break and an average of 3 minutes added-time on either side of the halves.  45+45+3+3+15 = 111 minutes of a 2 hour/120 minute time period.  Thanks to a bit of fluff on either side of the game, you generally count a soccer broadcast to last 1 hour and 55 minutes.  In the table below i’ve assumed that a huge portion of the intermission is commercial; in fact it is a lot less since most soccer broadcasts have a half-time show and highlights.  So if anything, the # of commercials in soccer broadcasts is less than listed.  Post 2014 World Cup Update: FIFA estimates that the group stage games averaged 57.6 minutes of action per game (if i’m reading their stat page correctly).  I’ll use this as the number going forward, even though World Cup games might be a bit “slower” than your average pro soccer game due to the careful, tactical nature of most of the matches.

So, in summary, here’s how the five major sports look like in terms of Ball in Play and # of commercials the viewer is forced to endure in a typical broadcast:

From this you can clearly see that watching Soccer gives you the most amount of live “Action,” though cynics and soccer-haters would probably claim that a lot of that action is “dead action,” defenders passing the ball around and not the type of action you see in other sports.  I’m a soccer fan and would rather have this type of “dead action” than what we see in the NFL: one 3 second running play then more than 30 seconds of watching players stand around before running another 3 second running play.  Don’t be fooled; there’s plenty of dead action in other sports too that gets counted as “live action” here … players walking the ball up the court in slow motion for 10 seconds in Basketball, the dumping of the puck to the end of the ice to facilitate a line shift in Hockey, etc.  So this kind of analysis is not an exact science.

Soccer is easily the most predictable of the five sports to plan a viewing experience around; you know for a fact that a regular-season/non-Overtime game is going to be over within 2 hours.  All the other sports can go into over-time and lengthen the time commitment.

Professional Football is at the bottom of all of these Viewer-experience measures: it is the longest broadcast, shows the least amount of game action and forces around 50 commercials an hour onto its viewers.  And the NFL is only getting worse; recent years have seen the introduction of new commercial breaks where none existed before (after a kickoff being the most ridiculous, but the mandated booth reviews at the end of halves now gift-wrap new commercial breaks to broadcasters at a game’s most critical time).

Thoughts?  If you have better information I’m all ears.  I’ve had very good suggestions to add to this data stuff like College Football, College Basketball and Tennis.  Perhaps some day with more research we’ll revisit.

Sources:

• WSJ study of a handful of MLB broadcasts in Oct, 2010.
• Subsequent WSJ study done in 2013, hat/tip to Tango Tiger’s blog.
• WSJ study of a handful of NFL broadcasts from Jan, 2010.
• This blogger‘s detailed timing of the 2010 superbowl.
• BusinessInsider.com study of baseball games from Dec 2010.
• This 2011 study of the four major European Soccer leagues for ball-in-play timings.
• This weaksideaction post about the average NBA game lengths from a few years ago.
• This livestrong post about Average NHL game lengths from a few years ago.
• Fifa World Cup Brazil 2014 Stats page
• This Nov 2014 Washington Post article referencing the WSJ article but adding some author observations.
• BusinessInsider 2015 piece on the rise of penalties in the new season, leading to longer game times.
• NBCSports/Hardball Talk piece about 2015’s pace of play rules and new average length of games.