Nationals Arm Race

I just finished reading the excellent book “Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick” by Paul Dickson (an excellent read by the way; you’ll have a completely different viewpoint on Veeck, the integration of baseball in the last 1940s and the modern in-game experience after reading this book), and was thinking of the infamous Veeck stunt of putting in Eddie Gaedel as the lead-off hitter of a game in 1951.

At the time, the commissioner Happy Chandler and the AL league president  immediately voided his contract and banned Gaedel as being a “mockery of the game.”  But after reading Veeck’s book, which details a near constant state of aggravation between himself and whoever was in charge of baseball at the time, its hard to determine whether this reaction was more about Gaedel or whether it was about an institutional hatred of Veeck.

However, consider this: today’s OBP-crazed baseball world, would a revisiting of someone like Gaedel be a worthwhile endeavor for a team?  Imagine having a player who could lead off every game and nearly guarantee a walk every time?  A runner on first with nobody out has a run-expectancy (RE) of about .826 (using 2013 numbers).  The RE of a typical lead-off hitter with a .400 OBP should be about 40% of the difference between the RE of nobody-on, nobody out (.467) and nobody-on, one out (.248), or about .336.   The RE difference?  .826-.336 = .490.  That’s nearly a half a run, per game!  Maybe in practice it’d be slightly less than .490 , since your under-sized lead-off hitter may end up making an out here and there … but it wouldn’t drop that much considering how difficult it’d be to *really* throw three strikes into a strike-zone not much larger than the baseball itself.

What manager wouldn’t take nearly an additional half a run expectancy per game?  That’s an awful lot of run expectancy for teams that generally average somewhere between 3.1 and 5.2 runs per game (those were the highest and lowest scoring teams in 2013 on a per-game basis).  If the Nationals had half a run more per game last year, they would have had a pythagorean (expected) W/L record of 93-69, an improvement of 9 wins over their expected W/L record.  Not insignificant.

Another huge difference in the game today versus 1951; a much more “understanding” American culture when it comes to discrimination of any type.  How can anyone justify banning someone based on their having dwarfism or some other size-limiting disability?  That’d never fly in a court of law.  This topic was discussed on a sports law blog I found a few years back and the author points out some very obvious points; would the voiding of the Gaedel contract have been possible in today’s legal environment considering the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Your Eddie Gaedel hitter bats leadoff every game, walks, then is immediately replaced by whoever would have normally been your lead-off hitter.  And because of this simple act, you’re likely to score about a half a run more per game.

How could anyone claim it was a mockery of the game if you demonstrated how much this move helps you win?

An interesting thought.  Perhaps this is the next Billy Beane market inefficiency to exploit.

In the wake of several posts I’ve seen on the topic of Qualifying Offers (one long-winded piece from the long-winded windbag Murray Chass here, accusing the owners of collusion in the cases of Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales instead of just understanding the state of the game, another from the more reasonable Jayson Stark here, talking about some potential fixes, and their respective agent Scott Boras whining about anonymous executive quotes in an ESPN article here), I thought I’d do some quantitiative-summary analysis of the Q.O. so far.

I think its fairly inarguable to state that the system isn’t really working how the players envisioned; especially as two decent FAs still sit un-signed.  Clearly the players union did not realize just how much teams are valuing draft picks, to the point where they’d rather keep a mid-first rounder than sign a decent middle-aged free agent.  I also believe that several of the players this past off-season got *really* bad advice on the state of the market for their services, and wholy deserve their fates.  Baseball is changing; we’re seeing metrics highlighting the value of defense, we’re seeing positional flexibility win out over inflexibility, and we’re seeing teams go with youth over veterans even when the cost difference is rather negligible.  That middle-aged, defensively challenged free agents (especially Morales) didn’t see this is entirely on them.  The situation is even worse for players of advancing years, who are not even getting contract offers after decent seasons and are being forced into early retirement in some cases.

Here’s part of a spreadsheet I put together, analyzing the eight guys who were faced with Q.O. decisions after the 2012 season:

Year	Player	Old Team	New Team	Draft Pick Forfeited	Signing Date	Subsequent contract (w/o options)	Money up/down per AAV	Q.O. Screw the player?
2012	Josh Hamilton	TEX	LAA	1-22	12/13/2012	5yrs/$125M	11.7	No
2012	Michael Bourn	ATL	CLE	2sup-69	2/11/2013	4yrs/$48M	-1.3	Sort of
2012	Kyle Lohse	STL	MIL	1-17	3/25/2013	3yrs/$33M	-2.3	Yes
2012	Adam LaRoche	WAS	WAS	none	1/16/2012	2/$24	-1.3	Yes
2012	B.J. Upton	TB	ATL	1-28	11/28/2012	5/$75.25M	1.95	No
2012	Hiroki Kuroda	NYY	NYY	none	11/20/2012	1yr/$15M	1.7	No
2012	Rafael Soriano	NYY	WAS	1-29	1/8/2013	2yr/$28M (lots deferred)	0.7	Sort of
2012	Nick Swisher	NYY	CLE	2-43	12/23/2012	4yr/$56M	0.7	No

Arguably, 3 of the 8 players in question were never going to be affected by the Q.O. (Hamilton and Upton because of the known long-term deals they were going to get, and Kuroda for being nearly guaranteed to return to the Yankees).  So, by my way of thinking 4 of the remaining 5 players in the  2012 FA class had their earnings either curtailed or affected by the presence of the Q.O.:

• Michael Bourn got a longer deal with more guaranteed money, but he got less in AAV than the Q.O. he turned down, so perhaps my view is arguable that he was affected.
• Rafael Soriano languished on the FA market until the Nats suprisingly signed him; his AAV in “real” dollars was significantly less in its estimate per year than the Q.O. he turned down (most estimates i’ve seen are at $11M/year with all the deferred money in his deal).  I hope Soriano keeps sending his agent Xmas cards; clearly Boras pulled a rabbit out of a hat to get him signed here.
• Adam LaRoche saw very little interest in his services and returned to the Nats on a discounted deal; meanwhile players with comparable skills but without compensation issues earned more years and more dollars.  Shane Victorino; 3yrs/$39M as an example.
• Kyle Lohse probably suffered the worst fate; he didn’t sign until a week before the season and for more than a 15% discount per year.  Meanwhile lesser pitcher Edwin Jackson got 4yrs/$52M by way of comparison, without a Q.O. attached to him.

Now here’s the same information for the thirteen players who dealt with (or who are dealing with) the issue after the 2013 season:

Year	Player	Old Team	New Team	Draft Pick Forfeited	Signing Date	Subsequent contract (w/o options)	Money up/down per AAV	Q.O. Screw the player?
2013	Carlos Beltran	STL	NYY	1sup-29	12/??/2013	3yrs/$45M	0.9	No
2013	Robinson Cano	NYY	SEA	2-47	12/12/2013	10yrs/$240M	9.9	No
2013	Shin-Soo Choo	CIN	TEX	1-22	12/??/2013	7yrs/$130M	4.47	No
2013	Nelson Cruz	TEX	BAL	2-56	2/22/2014	1yr/$8M	-6.1	Yes
2013	Stephen Drew	BOS	unsigned	??	unsigned	unsigned		Yes
2013	Jacoby Ellsbury	BOS	NYY	1sup-30	12/13/2013	7yrs/$153M	7.76	No
2013	Curtis Granderson	NYY	NYM	2-51	12/??/13	4yrs/$60M	0.9	No
2013	Ubaldo Jimenez	CLE	BAL	1-17	2/19/2014	4yrs/$50M	-1.6	Yes
2013	Hiroki Kuroda	NYY	NYY	none	12/6/2013	1yr/$16M	1.9	No
2013	Brian McCann	ATL	NYY	1-18	12/3/2013	5yrs/$85M	2.9	No
2013	Kendrys Morales	SEA	unsigned	??	unsigned	unsigned		Yes
2013	Mike Napoli	BOS	BOS	none	12/12/2013	2yrs/$32M	1.9	No
2013	Ervin Santana	KC	ATL	1-29	3/12/2014	1yr/$14.1M	0	Yes

Similarly to 2012, there were several FAs in this class for whom the Q.O. meant nothing: Cano, Choo, Ellsbury, McCann and Kuroda.  So, by my way of thinking 5 of the remaining 8 players had their contracts impacted … but two in a much more visible way:

• Drew and Morales remain unsigned to this point … and its hard to envision a scenario right now where any team would sign these players until after the Rule 4 draft in early June.  Why give up a draft pick at this point?   On the bright side for both players, there may be a veritable bidding war for their services after the draft, and they could get decent contracts which have (by rule) no further draft pick compensation issues.
• Nelson Cruz had to take a $6M pay-cut due to his not taking the Q.O., a serious miscalculation of his market by him and his agent.
• You may argue whether or not Ubaldo Jimenez really got screwed here, since he got $50M guaranteed in a four year deal.  But his AAV is a good 10% less than the Q.O. that he spurned form Cleveland.
• You can also argue about Ervin Santana, who signed for *exactly* the Q.O. amount once Atlanta lost most of their rotation for the year.  I still say he was impacted because of the amount of time it took and his subsequent service time loss to start the season.

If i’m a future veteran FA … i’d be rather worried.

So, what’s the fix?  Some say that this situation will naturally just take care of itself; next off-season maybe some players will finally take the Q.O. (remember; we’ve yet to have a single player take the offer), which in turn should make some teams wary of offering them in subsequent years.   But by the time this situation naturally plays itself out, it’ll be time for the next bargaining session.

I think the MLBPA needs to (in the next bargaining session) cut the cord on the link between draft picks and free agent compensation once and for all.  The entire reason draft pick compensation was invented was to “help” the little guys who lost free agents to the big teams.  But look at the list of the teams who are generally offering Q.O.’s to players right now: 6 of the 21 total offer’d players were from the Yankees, another 3 from Boston.  Those aren’t exactly teams “in need” of being given more picks in the draft.  In fact, of the 21 players who have gone through this system, by my count just THREE played for a team that I’d qualify as a “small market” (Upton from Tampa Bay, Jimenez from Cleveland and Santana from Kansas City).  Every other player plays for either a major market or a successful team in a mid-sized market.  How is this system “working” as per its original intent, at all??

Maybe the right way of doing things is to punish the big teams for signing FAs … but don’t allow them to “game” the system by subsequently gaining more picks back.   The Yankees signed four Q.O. affected free agents this past off-season … but only really lost one draft pick thanks to them having offered up and received their own compensatory picks for the players they knew they were going to lose anyway.  Why aren’t the Yankees being forced to lose their first four ROUNDS of draft picks?  If you’re in the top 10 in payroll, you only can lose in the draft pick compensation game, not win.

Footnote: Yes I acknowledge that, “in the grand scheme of things” it is really difficult to feel sorrow for a player for “only” earning $8M/year when he could have signed for $14.1M.  And its pretty hard to feel empathy for someone who feels slighted because he “only” got a 1-year 8 figure deal.  In some ways the money figures we talk about remind me of the infamous quote from NBA player Latrell Sprewell, who turned down a contract offer of $21M on the grounds that he “needed to be able to feed his family.”   For the sake of this post, lets dispense with the typical comments I see on the internet about how much money these guys are making as compared to middle-americans who struggle to get by on the median incomes for this country.  Baseball players participate in an economic market just like the rest of us; it just happens to value their talents at levels measured in the tens of millions of dollars instead of the tens of thousands that us normal people are used to.  For a huge, huge majority of professional baseball players, even a few seasons at the MLB minimum is all they’re ever going to see as payoff for years and years of incredibly curtailed earnings in the minors, and I’ll never consider these guys “overpaid.”

Predicted Division Winners and why:

• NL East: Washington.  I thought it was going to be a close race in 2014 until Atlanta lost 3/5ths of their rotation.  The rest of the division is awful; there could be a 20 game gap between 2nd and third place.
• NL Central: St. Louis.  What they lost in offense via FA they’ve more than made up for in their off-season acquisitions, plus they replace Jake Westbrook‘s awful starts with Michael Wacha‘s potentially ace-level starts.  No reason they’re letting off the gas now.  The best organization in the game.
• NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers.  Essentially the same team that ripped off a 42-8 streak last year, and they can only get better when injured super stars like Matt Kemp and Chad Billingsly come back from injury.  Can and will buy whatever they need to stay on top.

• AL East: Tampa. Lots of people are trendy-picking Tampa … and I think Tampa’s improved for sure.  But Boston hasn’t exactly regressed, and they won the most games in the sport last year to go along with the WS crown.  Boston has replaced key veterans with uber-prospects, who could go either way.  Meanwhile Tampa is rolling out basically the same team that would have won any other division easily, they kept David Price, and they’re getting a full season out of ROY Wil Myers.   I see this race going down to the wire with Tampa winning it.
• AL Central: Detroit hangs on for another year, despite some curious personnel moves this off-season.  It helps to have two of the best arms and the best hitter in the game.  But it’ll be much closer over Kansas City and Cleveland than they want, thanks to
• AL West: Oakland: Texas can’t go 48 hours without losing another player to injury.  The Angels have half a rotation and a bunch of overpaid underperforming sluggers on their team.  Seattle spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the off-season so they can lose 85 games again.  And Houston remains a laughing stock; they’ll be pressed to win 60 games again.  Oakland’s got as many SP injuries as Texas … but also has Billy Beane at the helm and he’s always ready to make a move.

Wild Cards

• NL: Atlanta and Cincinnati: Atlanta may have lost a lot of their rotation … but Minor’s only out a month and the kids they’re throwing out there may be able to tread water.  Atlanta’ still has the same offense basically that bashed their way to 96 wins.  But it’ll be close.  Meanwhile I see both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh taking steps back.  The question will be who steps back furthest.  Cincinnati lost some offense but replace it with a potential 100-steals guy who’s a defensive whiz in center; it could be a net gain on both sides of the ball.  Meanwhile Pittsburgh mostly stood pat, letting their #2 pitcher walk away and replaced him with a guy who was flat out released last year by one of the worst teams in the game (Edinson Volquez).  Maybe he’s just a place holder for Jamison Taillon … but that’s still 2 months of potential 6.00 ERA/bullpen sapping performances coming their way.   The Pittsburgh fans have to be somewhat dismayed that their 90+ win team did basically nothing to maintain their competitiveness the following year.   There’s not another team close in the NL: Arizona was a .500 team but they seem like they’ll be at best a couple games better, but not enough to be in the discussion.  Does anyone think the Giants are winning 15 more games this year than last?   Perhaps Milwaukee could make some noise and get into the race; that’d be my dark horse.
• AL: Boston and Kansas City: Tampa’s a great team and may very well switch places with the Red Sox as division champs, but for now we’re predicting that Boston has lost *just* enough to lose the division.  Meanwhile I think KC finally makes the leap.  They had last  year to improve; this year they gel and overtake Cleveland in the division.  They’re going to press Detroit (who always seems better than their record; how do they *only* win 93 games last year with the pitching and hitting they had?).

Its folly enough to do divisional predictions on day one of the season … even more so to predict who will finish with the best records and thus predict who gets the wild cards.  But i’ll give it a shot.  In the AL: Tampa, Detroit, Oakland in that order of victories, meaning Tampa gets the WC winner.  In the NL: Los Angeles, St. Louis and then Washington, meaning LA gets the wild card and StL would have home-field over the Nats.

Playoff Predictions:

• NL play-in: Cincinnati has the better big-game pitcher and squeaks out one against Atlanta
• AL play-in: Kansas City may have gotten there … but they’re not in the post-season for long as Boston bashes them to make the

• NL Divisional Series: St. Louis outlasts Washington in a heart-breaking revisit to the 2012 NLCS.  Los Angeles pummels the ace-less Reds behind their own 1-2 punch of Kershaw and Greinke.
• AL Divisional Series: Tampa outlasts Boston in a 5-game tear-jerker, while Detroit beats out Oakland in a complete re-peat of 2013’s playoff series.

• NLCS: Los Angeles  solves St. Louis’s pitching staff enough to win the Pennant.
• ALCS: Tampa gets the better of Detroit’s aces.

• World Series: NL over AL: Los Angeles’ spending pays off with a 6-game victory over Tampa.

 

I know its 20 degrees out, but we’re only a month away from opening day for the Nats, colleges started playing two weekends ago in the warmer states, and local amateur leagues can start as early as April 1st.  So lets talk some local baseball.

I thought it’d be of service to readers to summarize information of known local  adult/amateur leagues for anyone who is perhaps interested in getting back to playing, or who knows someone looking for a team.  If you’re looking for a place to play this summer, now is the time to reach out and start making contacts/sign up to play.  I’ve also gone over the Division 1 schools playing in the area and put in some links for those that want to go see some college ball.

I’ll list these leagues in perceived order of talent/skill/intensity from highest to lowest.  Each site also has links for those who may want to look into playing or watching.  I’m not including any youth, AAU, travel, American Legion, Babe Ruth or Cal Ripken (not to be confused with the Cal Ripken collegiate league) baseball here; we’ll start with College-age Adult baseball.  I will have a post coming later on that discusses draft prospects in the area worth following, which will give an overview of what high schools are worth looking up this spring.   Honestly I don’t know a ton about the big DC area travel league other than listening to complaints from my adult baseball buddies about how they get all the good fields :-).

1. Local College-area Baseball teams.  If you’re looking for some division 1 area baseball, Washington DC has four teams to consider: (ACC), George Mason (A-10), George Washington (A-10) and Georgetown (Big East) all play division 1 schedules of varying strength (in roughly the order I just listed).  Their home fields are:

• Maryland: on Shipley Field in College Park
• George Mason: across 123 from campus behind the big Track and Field pavilion
• Georgetown: on Shirley Povich field in Bethesda
• George Washington: in Barcroft Park on Four Mile Run in South Arlington

Maryland (being in the ACC for one last season) features several marquee teams visiting this year (2014 schedule here), including UNC, NC State (with consensus 1-1 overall pick Carlos Rodon), and Clemson.   Mason’s best home opponent (2014 schedule here) may be 2013 CWS participant St. Louis.  Georgetown’s 2014 home schedule‘s best visitor may be Seton Hall (the new Big East isn’t that big into baseball), and GW’s home slate for 2014 highlight may be Rhode Island.  These schools are playing each other in mid-week stand-offs here and there, and new A-10 rivals GW and Mason face off more than a few times this year.

Personlly, I’m kind of bummed by Mason’s exit to the A-10; it means no more visits to or from my alma mater JMU, an itinerant baseball power.   JMU does a mid-week visit to Maryland after playing a 3-game set in Towson; that’s about as close as they come to DC this year.

2. DC-Area Summer Collegiate Leagues: Once the NCAA seasons are done, lots of college players debunk for wood-bat leagues.  The local wood-bat Cal Ripken Collegiate League has teams from DC, Maryland and Virginia and is the successor to the long-running Clark Griffith League (one of the first wood-bat leagues in the nation but now defunct: the Clark Griffith league suspended operations in 2010 and has not been able to re-start itself).  The Cal Ripken league has flourished and expanded since its inception, taken some of the former Griffith teams and now has at least 12 teams competing.  The marquee team is the Bethesda Big Train, named after Senator’s great Walter Johnson and whose home games are at the fantastic Shirley Povich field in Bethesda (also the home-stadium of Georgetown University).  If you havn’t seen games at Povich, you should take a drive up there one night this summer and take in a game.  The quality of play is good (the players are either Division-1 college players or elite HS prospects) and the field is great.

The Cal Ripken league is a step down from the famed Cape Code League in terms of summer college talent … but then again nearly every other wood bat summer league is a step down as well.  Of the dozens of summer leagues out there, most pundits would rank the Cal Ripken league as a 3rd tier quality league (2nd tiers being leagues like the Valley League, the Northwest league, the Alaska league or the Coastal Plains leagues).  But the Cal Ripken league definitely has its share of pro alumni.

Eligibility: you must have college eligibility left to play in this league.  High Schoolers are eligible but rare.  Teams are competitively assembled and hand selected.  Most players are contacted through their college coaches, but some are placed via relationships with GMs.  The Cal Ripken teams are always looking for host families; if you are interested in hosting a player definitely reach out to the league to volunteer.

3. The Industrial League: The Industrial League is the most elite level of adult amateur baseball in the area, filled with ex-Collegiate players and ex-Pros to serve as close to a “semi pro” league as we have in the area.  The current incarnation of the Industrial league plays wood bat and is the combination of two long-standing leagues (the “Industrial League” and the “Credit Union” league).   The old Credit Union used to play with aluminum, but went to Wood fully upon its dissolvement.  There’s only a handful of teams; this league used to be much healthier.  The “history” page on the website is informative and gives some great background on the league itself and its origins.  A quick check on 2013’s season showed that they played just a partial slate of games compared to the 40-50 game schedules they used to play.

By way of talent comparison; recent industrial teams used to scrimmage the Griffith/Ripken teams and would get wiped out.  Not so much because of talent, but because of depth.  These college summer league teams have full rosters and massive bullpens.  However, many years ago the tables were turned when these industrial teams featured significantly more talent and would dominate the Clark Griffith teams of the time.

Personal connection: I played in the predecessor league (Credit Union) for a brief time while in college, and can attest to the quality of play at the time.

Eligibility: no restrictions; anyone can play at any age.  No restrictions on time sitting out if you are an ex-pro.

4.  DCMSBL/MABL: DC Mens Senior Baseball League: a large adult baseball league (the 2nd largest Adult league in the Nation according to MSBL’s records) with divisions ranging from 19 and up to 55 and up.   DCMSBL started in 1991 with just a 30+ division and now has dozens of teams split amongst 19+, 25+, 35+,45+,55+ and a wood-bat only league that crosses age divisions.  In 2012 the league had no less than 75 teams among all these divisions (each team has to have a minimum of 15 registered players, meaning there’s more than 1100-1200 players in the league).  Note: MABL stands for Mens Adult Baseball League, which was formerly the under 30 adult league now rolled into one organization).

The DCMSBL amateur league is pretty decent baseball.  The 19-and up is essentially a low-end collegiate summer league (though not nearly as talented as Cal Ripken).  There is some overlap with teams in the Industrial league and the Cross-age group woodbat leagues.  The 25 and up division has a large number of ex-college players and ex-pros, and the 35-and up teams have more than their fare share of ex-major leaguers as well.  Its not uncommon to face a guy in the upper 25+ division who was a starter for his Division-1 college team for 4 years and is just a few years removed from that level of competition.  There’s enough teams so that there are “upper” and “lower” divisions of play within each age group.  From an intensity standpoint, the “upper” divisions are quite competitive each year while the “lower” divisions are less intense but certainly not a “beer drinking” division like you’d see if you were playing softball.

Teams are organizing right now for play that starts in the first week of April.  There’s a player waiting list that you can sign up for at the website www.dcmsbl.com.

Note: there is also the Chesapeake MSBL that covers the Annapolis, Southern Maryland and Howard county areas with similar rules and talent levels to DCMSBL.  The two leagues play an all-star game at season’s end in one of the local minor league stadiums (this year in Frederick).

Personal Connection: I played in this league for more than a decade, finally “retiring” temporarily (?) to rehab injuries and get our kid out of infancy.  We played two seasons in the “upper” 25+ league and the rest in one of the lower leagues; the upper leagues are pretty good baseball, though not nearly as good as the Credit Union of old.

Eligibility: ex-professionals must sit out a year before being eligible to play.

5. DC Wood Bat League, formerly associated with NABA and which absorbed teams from the old WARBL.  It had 12 teams for 2012 and expanded to two divisions and 14 teams in Spring/Summer 2013 (in prior years they had as many as 20 teams; its good to see them growing).  There seems to be some overlap between DCWood and DCMSBL teams, and this league definitely has had some talented teams in the past.

Eligibility: 19+, no known pro restrictions.

6. Ponce de Leon league, owned and operated by Bob Duff, serves as an excellent low-key competitive league for players to play.   There are a slew of very specific competition rules that control the flow of games, prevent blowouts and limit the ability of pitchers to dominate the league.  But this league also guarantees participation and is a great option for guys who havn’t played in years or who are nervous about the intensity of the above leagues.

It is now affiliated with the DC Wood bat league somehow; this is a new affiliation and I don’t know all the details other than what’s on the websites.

Ponce has two age divisions; 30+ and 48+.  You have to be at least 30 and cannot pitch unless you’re at least 36 in the younger division.  There are no pitching restrictions in the older division.

To show how much inter-linking and cooperation there is between the leagues mentioned here, we met Ponce league owner Duff when he ran a fantastic DCMSBL 28+ team back in the late 90s (they’re now a dominant 35+ team), he owns and operations the Ponce league, which has an affiliation with the Wood bat league, and Duff used to own/sponsor one of the Clark Griffith teams.  That’s some serious participation in the local DC baseball scene.  Just to add one more note about Duff; he started and runs the Diamond Dream Foundation, which runs baseball programming for youths, has an association with the Nationals and runs a charity golf event every August that features many current and former pros with connections to the Orioles, the Nationals and baseball in general.  If you’re interested in playing in this golf event, I’ll be sure to put an announcement out when he starts organizing.

Eligibilty:  30+ with restrictions as noted above.  No known pro restrictions.

[Editor’s note: after the 2013 publication of this, I noticed an advertisement in a local publication for new adult baseball league, discussed here.]

7. Legends Sports Leagues: Has two divisions (19+ and 30+) and advertises itself as a “less pressure” league.  Has been in operation for a while based on the pictures from their website.  I can’t believe i’ve never heard of it; anyone know anything about this league?

8. Eastern Women’s Baseball Conference: the EWBC is an Adult Womens baseball league with teams from DC to Baltimore that plays competitively.  I must admit; I had not heard about them until prompted by suggestions in the comments from last year’s post.

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I’d love to hear from you if you’re familiar with any other area leagues that I may have missed, or if you have some thoughts on the post here.  I know there were lots of corrections and clarifications from this post last year; apologies if I didn’t get them all in for this year.

Editor’s note: some of this is reposted from last year’s PSA informational blog about area baseball leagues.

I was listening to a baseball podcast this past week about General Managers in baseball and heard an interesting fact; it has now been more than two years since an MLB General Manager has been fired.  Sure enough, the last GM fired was Houston’s Ed Wade in November of 2011.  There is a GM with less service time (Rick Hahn of the White Sox), but he rose to take over the job for long time GM Kenny Williams, who was promoted to executive VP of the team.  So all in all there’s been decent stability among baseball executives in the shorter term.

I’ve had a draft version of a “GM Rankings” post written for nearly three years.  Why so long?  Because I started the post, got distracted, and then no less than seven general manager positions were filled/replaced in two very hectic weeks following the end of the 2011 season.  There’s no way you can judge how well a GM has done with just a few months on the job, so there was no point in trying to rank the GMs when a quarter of them were un-rankable.

Well, now we’re two plus years onwards from October 2011, each of those seven new GMs has had two seasons and three off-seasons to show their vision, and I think its time to revisit my rankings.

Below is an attempt to rank the GMs, #1 to #30.  Beware: this is a massive post.  6,000+ words.  I may have over-done it a little bit.

To me, a successful GM balances several factors all at once:

• Winning at the major league level (obviously).
• Total payroll outlay (in the context of free agency and use of your payroll budget)
• Player development/Farm system rankings
• Trades and industry opinion and reaction on moves made to build your team

Now for the caveats to keep in mind to the above GM goals:

1. Purposely NOT winning on the field: In some cases you get carte blanche to purposely be awful on the field after years of mis-management and get a pass (see Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs, along with several other teams to a lesser, less obvious extent).
2. Payroll discrepancies/Major market GMs: To me, generating the best or 2nd best record in baseball with the largest payroll isn’t proving anything.  In fact, if you do NOT make the playoffs despite such a massive payroll (as the Red Sox didn’t do in 2010 and the Yankees didn’t do in 2012), then if anything you’re really failing as a GM.  So payroll versus success counts heavily to me.  As you’ll see below with the rankings of the GMs from the profligate teams.
3. Farm system usage caveats: In some cases you sacrifice your farm system to make acquisitions to help you win now (like what the Milwaukee Brewers did in 2011 and what Toronto has done for the last couple of years).

I created a GM rankings spreadsheet where I track all sorts of interesting information that you use to judge GMs (the link is also along the right hand side of the blog), and where I tried to quantitatively judge the 30 GMs.  The spreadsheet has GM tenure, market size, ownership meddling factors, Farm system rankings, 2012 and 2013 payroll versus W/L rankings, plus my attempts to quantify three facets of a GM’s job: MLB success, Trades and FA moves and the Farm system.  I will freely admit; i am paying significantly more attention to performance over the past three  years than performance over the past 10.  Maybe that’s fair, may be not.  But it hurts a long-time GM like Brian Cashman who guided his team to the playoffs year after year (but, see Cashman’s write up for my reservations on GMs of massive payroll teams).

I’m classifying the GMs into rough tiers:

• The Elite: The best GMs in the game, who have balanced payroll, on-field success and development the best.
• The Excellent: a group of ten or so GMs who are all excellent at what they do and are mostly interchangeable up and down the order.
• The Middle-ground: a group of  GMs that happens to include three of the biggest spender teams and the bottoming-out teams that are difficult to judge.
• The Concerning: GMs who for various reasons are struggling right now.
• The Underperforming: the bottom few GMs who for various reasons are easy targets for bloggers based on their moves and their teams.

It is really hard to rank these guys 1 to 30 without someone nit picking the order, but I would argue with you if you told me that some one in the bottom tier was actually “good.”  It wasn’t as easy to do these rankings as I thought it would be; in fact every time I’ve come back to this post i’ve ended up moving around the GMs, to the point where I’m just declaring victory and publishing.  I like the top and bottom of these rankings, but if you wanted to argue that the guy I’ve got ranked 22nd really should be 18th, then I probably won’t disagree.

Lets give it a shot:

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The Elite

1. John Mozeliak, St. Louis.   What more can you say about the model franchise of baseball and its leader/architect?   The #1 farm system last year, a huge percentage of its players home-grown, in the playoffs three of the last four years, a win and a runner-up in that time, and all while maintaining a payroll outside the top 10 in the league.  This team survived the FA loss of the game’s best player (Albert Pujols) by returning to the playoffs the subsequent year and leading the league in wins in 2013.  Can’t ask for much more than that.  Mozeliak is my choice for the best GM in the game over two other more famous candidates in the elite category.

2. Andrew Friedman, Tampa Bay.  Is there any argument that Friedman is this high? He took over in 2005 and within three years had the league’s best record.  They’ve won 90+ games four years in a row in the league’s best division.  He’s done this despite routinely having one of the lowest payrolls in the game, despite off-loading talent as soon as it becomes pricey, by stockpiling draft picks (11 of the first 75 picks in the 2011 draft), and by signing his key players early on to incredibly club-friendly contracts (see the deals that Evan Longoria and David Price signed pre-arbitration).   In fact, I daresay that the success the Rays have had in the draft was a driving force behind richer owners (hello, Mr. Jerry Reinsdorf) pushing for bonus limits on the amateur market.  In 2013 the team had the 3rd lowest payroll in the game but still made the playoffs ahead of the Yankees (who spent nearly FOUR TIMES as much as the Rays).  Many would say these facts by default put Friedman #1 and I wouldn’t argue; only the drop-off in his farm system this year keeps him from overtaking Mozeliak.  Call these two GMs 1 and 1-a.

3. Billy Beane, Oakland.   The league’s 2nd longest tenured GM is likely to retire as its longest, since he owns a stake in the team and has re-made his approach to building teams in the last couple of years to great success.  This ownership stake affords Beane the job security that he wouldn’t have otherwise, and has afforded him the time he needed to find his next “market inefficiency.”  After some lean years following the “Moneyball” period in the mid 2000s, Beane has turned the A’s into a two-time defending AL West defending champion (a division with two of the most profligate spending teams in the game).  His new team-building method seems to be around wheeling-and-dealing, and he’s been good at it.  He turned over a significant amount of his 2012 team and won even more games in 2013.   The ding on Beane may be his farm system; Oakland has struggled to develop players lately and some may argue that Beane’s ranking should be slightly lower as a result.  I’ll say this though; being successful in the league when routinely putting out payrolls in the $55M-$60M range (where his 2012 and 2013 teams sat) by default makes you one of the best in my book.  

The Excellent

4. Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers.  Texas made the 2010 World Series with the 27th highest payroll in the major leagues.  That in and among itself is enough to earn Daniels his street cred.  However, his 2013 payroll had ballooned to $125M and they got unlucky by missing out on the playoffs by one game in 2013.  Otherwise two World Series trips in four years is still nothing to shake a stick at, and the fact that they didn’t win game 6 of the 2011 World Series still amazes me.  Daniels’ reputation is on the line though in a big way; his moves for Prince Fielder, for Shin-Soo Choo and for Alex Rios will be tested in 2014.  The team will need everything it can get out of its (mostly) home grown rotation thanks to unfortunate injuries already suffered this year (Derek Holland tripping over his own dog).  I give Daniels a ton of credit for accomplishing what he did with a $65M payroll; can he continue to do it with a $130M payroll?  The bar only gets higher.

5. Walt Jocketty, Cincinnati.  I still wonder how he got fired in St. Louis.  He made the playoffs 6 years out of 7, including a World Series win.  Then the year following he gets canned.  In Cincinnati, he inherited a reigning NL MVP Joey Votto but made some shrewd acquisitions (Mat Latos, Aroldis Chapman), and drafted well (including selecting Mike Leake, who has yet to spend a day in the minors).   The Reds play in a small market but have made the playoffs 3 of the last 4 years and continue to develop good players (Billy Hamilton and Tony Cingrani being the latest two studs).  Jocketty is in a lofty rank now; we’ll see how things go after the loss of Shin-Soo Choo this past off-season and the slight turning-over of the roster we’re now seeing.  If the Reds continue to make the playoffs, Jocketty should continue to get a ton of credit.

6. Ben Cherington, Boston Red Sox.  Normally I’m really skeptical of GMs for teams with $175M payrolls who have success.  But it is difficult to argue with what Cherington has done since taking over the reigns.  He completely undid a ton of the damage that his predecessor had done by offloading two horrible contracts (Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez) and one malcontent (Josh Beckett) on the Dodgers and actually receiving prospect value back.   He has quickly built the Boston farm system back to where it is one of the best in the game (they have as many top 100 prospects as any organization out there).  And they just won the World Series.  Cherington loses some credit for the disastrous Bobby Valentine hiring that led to the even more disastrous 2012 season … but he also recognized the faults with both the team and the manager and led a complete 180 degree turnaround.  And I laughed at Cherington’s almost comical chasing of closers (as documented in this space in June 2013).  But a title erases a lot of criticism.  Boston remains well positioned going forward but will be depending very heavily on the fruits of their farm system in 2014 and beyond.  If Boston turns these high value prospects into another playoff appearance while driving down payroll, Cherington’s ranking will only rise.

7. Mike Rizzo, Washington Nationals.  Rizzo took over for the disgraced Jim Bowden in March of 2009 and had quite a job ahead of him.  The team on the field was on their way towards losing 100 games for the second year in a row and the farm system was dead last in the majors.  What has Rizzo done since?  The team improved 30 games in the win column between 2010 and 2012, the farm system was considered the best in the game just two years on from Rizzo’s hiring (it should be said, thanks to two straight #1 overall picks resulting in two of the most dynamic players in the last 20 years being available to us), and now has two drafts and two off-seasons worth of work under his belt.  He has brought a new mind-set to the draft, focusing on quick-to-the-majors college arms instead of nebulous tools-y high school players.  He also has managed to work with the sport’s most notorious agent (Scott Boras) and successfully handled the two most high-profile draftees (arguably) in the history of the game.  He has completely re-made the Nats roster in the past two years (only 3 members of the opening day roster 2009 team are still with the franchise).   I’ve questioned his roster construction at times, feeling like he over-emphasized defenders at the expense of offense (running Michael Morse and Josh Willingham out of town), and he obsessed over a leadoff/CF type until he got one (Denard Span, trading away our best starting pitching prospect at the time), but a 98-win season smooths over a lot of criticism.  Other pundits place Rizzo even higher than I have; 7th seems like a good spot to be until we see if this team can get back to the playoffs.   If the Nats falter again in 2014 and don’t achieve something in this “window,” Rizzo’s tenure and the 2012 season may be viewed simply as an aberration instead of a well built team.

8. Frank Wren, Atlanta Braves.  A couple years ago you would probably have Wren ranked in the middle of the pack at best.  He clearly botched both ends of the Mark Teixeira deals, essentially turning Texas regulars Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia into a year of Teixeira and Casey Kotchman.  Imagine how good Atlanta would be right now if they still had the 3 core members that remain in Texas.  That being said, you cannot argue with where the Braves have been going.  With middle-of-the-road payrolls and an awful TV deal the Braves have a team with a lot of home-grown talent that won the NL East by 10 games last year.  His rotation is young and home-grown (Minor, Beachy, Medlen, Teheran), his team full of home-grown talent (with Freeman, Heyward and Simmons leading the way).  And they have the best bullpen in the game.  On the down-side, there are questions about some of his recent signings (BJ Upton and Uggla in particular), the farm system hasn’t quite come back from its 2010 rankings (thanks to so much of the talent it generated), and I’m not sure anyone really likes Atlanta’s 2013 off-season.  So, we’ll give Wren credit for the past few years and indicate a note of caution going forward.

9. Neil Huntington, Pittsburgh Pirates.  I’m not sure if I’ve got him too high, but I’ll say this: after getting Pittsburgh to the playoffs (and a winning record) for the first time in a generation, Huntington has them in the right direction.  His moves to build last year’s team were excellent, the team has a ton of home-grown talent yet still has one of the best farm systems in the game, and should continue to be a success in the NL Central.

10. Sandy Alderson, New York Mets.  How can anyone involved with the New York Mets over the past 10 seasons be considered a success?  Because long-time baseball insider Alderson has done well with what he was handed and has the Mets heading in the right direction.  In the past three years their farm system has grown in leaps and bounds, going from the bottom third to nearly a top 5 system.   He got great value in trade for R.A. Dickey, has drafted and developed well, and we started to see the fruits of that player development with last year’s all-star game starter Matt Harvey.   He’s finally rid of the awful contracts that his predecessor handed him ($43.6M of the team’s $93M payroll last year was dead money to just two guys: Johan Santana and Jason Bay.  Almost 50%) and has bought conservatively this off-season while Harvey recovers and more of his young arms matriculate.   If the Mets ownership ever decides to start spending money again and this team’s prospects come to fruition, they could be a force.

11. Brian Sabean, San Francisco Giants.  Sabean is the longest tenured GM in the game, is unabashedly “old school” and is consistently mocked for his signings and moves.  I thought his Tim Lincecum deal was ridiculous, I couldn’t believe the amount of money they guaranteed Hunter Pence, and more than a few people are questioning the Michael Morse deal.   San Francisco’s farm system is weak and has been for years (after contributing MVPs and Cy Young winners, it should be said).   To all these naysayers I say this: Two World Series titles in the last four years.  The goal of every team is to win the title, and his teams have done it twice in four years.  The Yankees have one title in the last 15  years.  So you have to give Sabean some credit.  11th seems about right.  Not too high, not too low.  He’d have been much higher had his team not imploded in 2013.

12. Chris Antonetti, Cleveland Indians.  Antonelli has subscribed to the same “wheeling and dealing” mechanism for building teams that Billy Beane has done, and it turned a perennial doormat Indians team into a 2013 playoff team.  They play in a small market and have an $80M payroll, and Antonelli has taken their farm system from awful to respectable in the last three years.  So the system is improving as is the on-the-field product.  So far, so good in Cleveland for Antonelli’s tenure.  I’m hesitant to push him much higher because i’m convinced the Indians succeeded in 2013 on the backs of several very awful divisional rivals (for example; the Indians were 17-2 on the season versus the White Sox but only 4-15 versus the Tigers, quite a swing for a 90-win team; if they were that legitimate a team they would have been much closer to .500 against their divisional winner).  So slightly above the median looks good.

The Middle-Ground

13. Jeff Luhnow, Houston Astros.  Three years ago Houston was an 88-loss team with a $90M payroll and the 29th ranked farm system.   To his credit, Luhnow has reversed at least two of those factors in a big way; he has cleared the decks of the awful contracts that boat-anchored the Astros under his predecessor.  Of course, at the same time he’s turned the Astros into a 110-loss team and, for the first time since the dead-ball era, last place three years running.  So what has Luhnow done?  Inside of two years he’s gone from the worst farm system to the best on the backs of #1 overall picks Carlos Correa and Mark Appel.  Soon they’ll likely add Carlos Rodon to that stable, giving this team a fearsome set of players to roll-out within a couple years.  So how do we judge Luhnow?  Right about in the middle; he’s set out to do what he needed to do; if his foundation leads to on-the-field success Luhnow will be counted among the best GMs in the game for laying out the roadmap and sticking to it.

14. Brian Cashman, New York Yankees.  Some say that just the mere fact that Cashman has survived as long as he has in the shadow of the Steinbrenner family ownership of the Yankees should be proof enough that he is among the best GMs in the game, and certainly higher ranked than he is here.   Fair enough.  But here’s the inescapable facts: his farm system is deteriorating, the most significant player on the 2014 team actually developed at home seems to be Brett Gardner, they had a $225M payroll last year and didn’t make the playoffs, their rotation will pivot mostly on a 40-yr old’s career renaissance, and their starting 2014 infield played a combined 200 games last year.    And they’re being saved only by the grace of Bud Selig‘s hatred for Alex Rodriguez, whose suspension “saves” the team $25M this year (quickly spent on their new “#3 starter” Masahiro Tanaka, to whom they guaranteed more than $175M dollars).  I dunno; maybe Cashman should be lower.  They have made the playoffs 4 of the last 6 years and have a title, and Cashman’s early tenure record speaks for itself .. but at what point do you notice that the team hasn’t done very much since the “core four” have entered their decline phases and begin to wonder if Cashman isn’t just a guy with a big checkbook instead of a good GM?

15. Dave Dombrowski, Detroit Tigers.  Lots of on-field success thanks to Dombrowski sticking to his plan; he took over the year the Tigers lost 119 games.   It is worth noting that 3 years later they were in the world series.  Now he’s gotten them into the playoffs three years running, to which he’s due plenty of credit.  But his farm system has hit rock bottom, he’s spending a ton of money, and he’s making very questionable moves.  The industry panned his Doug Fister move (even if it seemed to greatly benefit the Nats) and people questioned his Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler move.  They were weird moves for a “win now” team.  Perhaps I should give Dombrowski more credit, but his 2013-14 off-season knocked him down a number of pegs for me.  If they miss out on the playoffs to an up-and-coming Royals team, he’ll suddenly be on the hot-seat.

16. Ned Colletti, Los Angeles Dodgers.  Seriously, how do you judge the job Colletti is doing right now?   His team’s payroll went from $95M in 2012 to more than $216M in 2013.  He’s got $57M tied up in three outfielders not named Yasiel Puig right now.   You almost got the impression that Colletti called up Boston and just said, “Hey, I’ll take every sh*tty contract off your hands right now … i’ve got money to spend and I don’t care how we spend it!”  On the bright side, somehow the Dodgers have kept a reasonable ranking with their farm system throughout all of this, but the skill involved with paying everyone on your team $20M/year is close to nil.  As with Cashman, I wonder if Colletti is ranked too high even here.

17. Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals.   Other mid-market teams (Oakland, Tampa, Pittsburgh) have shown a ton more accomplishment on the field than Kansas City; why hasn’t Moore’s teams done better?  He’s been in his job nearly 8 seasons and the team spun its wheels for seven of them.  Signings that didn’t pay off and fizzled farm system talents defined this team for years.  Finally Moore went all-in, trading the best prospect in the game (Wil Myers) for a package of pitchers to help the Royals get over the hump.   Between 2012 and 2013 they added $21M in payroll and these players and gained 14 games in the win column; just enough for … 3rd place.   The industry entirely believes Moore was fleeced by Tampa Bay, and the trade looked so bad at the time that pundits wondered if Moore wasn’t getting some pressure from above to “win more now or get canned.”  But it didn’t take Myers but the next season to win the rookie of the year award, and he may be a player that Kansas City fans rue for a generation.  I think Moore may not be long for the job, and with good reason; why hasn’t he been able to win when guys like Huntington and Beane have?

18. Terry Ryan, Minnesota Twins.  Ryan has been with Minnesota for-ever; hired in 1994.  He stepped aside and then was re-hired in 2011, and is now in a rebuilding phase.  The team let go one of its faces of the franchise last off season (Justin Morneau) and is going to begin a big youth movement this year.  They’re going to be bad, but perhaps not Houston bad thanks to a couple of (odd?) starting pitcher signings.  Help is coming; Ryan has built on of the best farm systems in the game and it features two of the top 5 prospects out there (Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano).   Perhaps it isn’t fair to rank Ryan here with Luhnow higher, but Ryan was partly responsible for the downfall of this team and the abhorrent starting rotation of last year.  But once their MVP-grade talents arrive at the majors, Ryan’s work of rebuilding the farm system should be rewarded.

The Concerning

19. Josh Byrnes, San Diego.  Byrnes inherited a 90-win team that surprised but which was getting ready to hit a transitional stage.   Byrnes got some good prospects from the Adrian Gonzalez deal and some more in the Mat Latos deal, but they havn’t turned into wins on the  Three straight years of 71-76 wins has spirits dampened in San Diego.   Now their MLB team looks poor, the farm system is good but drifting, and they’re talking about another rebuilding effort.   He’s only a couple years in but things aren’t looking up; his division includes a team that is spending 4 times what he can spend.

20. Kevin Towers, Arizona.  So here’s my summary of Towers’ tenure in Arizona so far: he continues to drive away players and prospects who aren’t “gritty” enough for him, trading them for 50 cents on the dollar.  His farm system has gone from good to middle of the road.  His payroll is rising … and yet his team is winning the same number of games.  And yet both he and Kirk Gibson just got contract extensions.  Why exactly does anyone think Towers and Gibson are doing a good job right now?   How many more games would they have lost had they not magically found a 6-win player in Paul Goldschmidt (an 8th round pick) last year?

21. Jed Hoyer (Theo Epstein), Chicago Cubs.  I know Hoyer is the GM, but lets be honest; this is Epstein’s team.  The Cubs hired Epstein for him to re-make the franchise as he did in Boston.  Except that Epstein left Boston in a huge mess, with a slew of very bad contracts and an even worse clubhouse.  Now he’s come to Chicago and made some questionable moves (the Edwin Jackson signing, the Anthony Rizzo fan-boy pursuit, etc) while not making other more obvious moves (why is Jeff Samardzija still on this team if they’re “rebuilding?”).  To their credit, they got value for Alfonso Soriano, only one of the most untradeable players in the game.  And they’ve gotten a pass to rebuild the farm system, which is now ranked in the top 5 in the game and should start to bear fruit.   Now, that farm system is loaded with hitters, and with Wrigley’s comfy stadium the Cubs may be offensive juggernauts in no time, but they still need pitching.  How will the Hoyer/Epstein team handle that?  Hopefully not with more signings like the Jackson deal.

22. Michael Hill, Miami Marlins.  The one huge caveat that goes with the Miami GM job is this: Jeffrey Loria is probably the most hands on owner in the game, and you almost can’t judge this GM’s ability based on who is calling the shots.  The only other owner who seems to have as much pull is, ironically, ranked next.   Miami loaded up for 2012 in their new stadium and had completely dismantled things before August.  Now they’re a $50M payroll team with some superstar prospects .. but a middling farm system and questionable direction.

23. Dan Duquette, Baltimore Orioles.  Duquette has had an odd off-season; his owner 86’d two of his signings thanks to questioning the “medicals,” which insiders point out is Peter Angelos‘ method of nixing deals he doesn’t like.  Must be frustrating.  Instead Duquette is now signing every re-tread FA who can’t find a job thanks to the CBA’s draft pick compensation issues, punting draft pick after draft pick.  The O’s did make the playoffs in 2012, thanks to an unsustainable record in one-run games, and have had a decent run of success out of their farm system (Manny Machado should be mentioned in the same breath as Trout and Harper frankly), but are they on the right track to get back?

24. Dan O’Dowd/Bill Geivett, Colorado Rockies.   The Rockies have a very unique front-office structure right now, resulting from an August 2012 shake-up that left industry insiders questioning the roles and the message coming from the team.   Nonetheless, the direction of the Rockies leaves something to be desired.   They’ve drifted on the field, employed questionable starting pitching usage strategies, and generally are treading water.  Their farm system is starting to look up though; will that be enough to compete in a division with the Dodgers?

25. Alex Anthopolous, Toronto Blue Jays. Anthopolous took over for the maligned JP Ricciardi after the 2009 season.  In the time since, he traded Roy Halladay, acquired Morrow, traded for Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes, acquired Rajai Davis, and perhaps most impressively offloaded the albatross contract for Vernon Wells.  He had an 85-win team in the hardest division in baseball with a 70M payroll for 2011.  Then he went for it, emptying the farm system (which was one of the league’s best in 2011) to acquire the likes of R.A. Dickey and the whole slew of ex-Marlins.  Now he’s got a massive payroll, an underperforming team and empty cupboards in the minors.  All the good work he did to prepare Toronto for battle in the AL east has gone for naught unless last year was just a big huge adjustment period for all these newly acquired veterans.

The Underperforming

26. Doug Melvin, Milwaukee Brewers: Melvin is an interesting case; the Brewers purposely bottomed out their farm system to make a playoff run in 2011, the last year before they lost Prince Fielder and their fortunes would change.  And change they have; the Brewer’s player development efforts have not moved off the bottom of the league (their farm system is either last or dead last on every pundit list) while their on-the-field record has dropped (they’ve gone from 96 to 83 to 74 wins in the last three years).   Now they’re the 4th best team in their division and it isn’t close, and it is unclear what their plan is going forward.   They’ve got quality players at certain places, but have made odd signings (losing their 1st round pick last year to sign Kyle Lohse of all people).  You can’t help the Ryan Braun situation, and they got unlucky with injuries (Corey Hart in particular) so perhaps this ranking is unfair.  But I still feel like the Brewers are adrift in terms of strategy and thus Melvin’s ranked this low.

27. Jerry Dipoto, Los Angeles Angels.  The worst or 2nd worst (along with Milwaukee) farm system in the majors for the past few years.  One of the largest payrolls in the league giving them a 78-84 record last year.  Over-paying for aging slugger (Albert Pujols) after aging slugger (Josh Hamilton) while inexplicably signing one of the worst statistical starters in the game to a multi-year deal (Joe Blanton) and entering last season with a clear and obvious rotation issue.  Dipoto earned the absolute worst “quantitative grade” in my GM ranking xls, trying to measure the three GM factors of on-the-field success, farm system development and trades/FA signings.  The only reason I don’t also rank him last is because i’m not entirely convinced that Dipoto isn’t a decent executive who’s being told by a highly-involved owner (Arte Moreno) to sign all these guys.   But, there’s really no reason that a team playing in LA and who is spending three times what his divisional rival Oakland is spending isn’t consistently finishing ahead of them in the standings.

28. Rick Hahn (Kenny Williams), Chicago White Sox.  What can you say?  The White Sox lost 100 games with a $118M payroll last year and have had the worst (or near to it) farm system in the game for years.  The White Sox organization is in a bad way, and i’m not sure why Williams’ stewardship was rewarded with the “promotion” to team president.   They lost 18 games in the win column from 2012 to 2013 and it is hard to see how they’re going to be any better this year.  It does seem though that they are undergoing a “rebuilding effort,” in that their payroll seems like it will be $40M less this year versus last and they’ve moved some of their bigger salaries in “rebuilding mode” moves (Alex Rios, Jake Peavy).  So perhaps its slightly unfair to have Hahn so low, if he’s entering into a purposely bad period.  Nonetheless; this set of executives got the White Sox where they are now, so their low ranking is earned.

29. Ruben Amaro, Philadelphia Phillies.  I’ll admit that i’m probably biased here.  While i’ve given credit to other GMs whose teams have had success in the past several years, i’ve not given Amaro the same benefit of the doubt.  And that basically comes down to several, clear facts; Amaro has destroyed the Phillies with multiple long-term deals for declining players, most notably Ryan Howard‘s contract (widely considered the worst dollar for dollar contract in the game).  His team 3rd highest payroll in 2013 and nearly lost 90 games.  His recent FA moves have been laughable (Delmon Young and Michael Young?  John Lannan as his sole pitching move last off-season?  His ridiculous contract extension for Carlos Ruiz this past off-season?).  His heels-in-the-ground obstinant refusal to adopt any understanding or acceptance for analytics or modern statistical approach to his job makes me wonder just how asleep at the wheel his owner is.  He’s let his farm system lapse while his on-the-field product falters.  He puts out mixed messages in regards to his direction (Cliff Lee mentioned in trade rumors?  Are the Phillies going to rebuild or not?).  But the coup-de-grace for me is the news that just came out that Amaro’s organization has purposely attempted to sabotage college kids who spurned the Phillies last summer, ratting them out to the NCAA out of pettiness, spite or vengeance.   Despite their WS win and appearances in the last 6 years, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Amaro still has a job at this point.

30. Jack Zduriencik, Seattle Mariners.  Zero playoff appearances in his tenure.  His farm system has pushed out all the talent it apparently has to give and now is in the bottom third of the league with more than a few “busts” (notably Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley vastly underperforming).  A 90 loss team last year, and he’s just gotten done committing hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts yet likely has only improved his team a few wins, thanks to a fundamental lack of understanding of what it takes to build baseball lineups (he seems to be depending basically on 3 rookies in his rotation for 2014).  And it seems that Zduriencik not only is poor at his job, but he may have depended on deception (if not outright fraud) to get it, thanks to the reporting of Geoff Baker at The Seattle Times last off-season.  One only needs to look at his method of building teams to notice that he has no concept of defensive capabilities and he seems to collect 1b/DH types without consideration of how many runs they’ll be costing him thanks to sub-par defense (Michael Morse and Raul Ibanez at the corner OF positions last year, his plans to play Logan Morrison and Corey Hart in the OF this year).  How long before Robinson Cano is a brooding $200M boat anchor on this team as they continue to lose 90 games year after year in a division dominated with better GMs and bigger payrolls?  All these facts contribute to my ranking Zduriencik last.

 

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Here’s some other links relevant to this discussion, for your perusal.  Wiki’s list of all 30 GMs.  Baseball America’s excellent Executive database.  Scout.com’s Kiley McDaniel ranked the GMs by job security in Jan 2014.   Buster Olney posted a “Peer Review” of GMs back in 2010, but its mostly obsolete with all the movement since.  Still somewhat interesting to hear what GMs are saying about each other anonymously.

Finally some other rankings lists that I could find (and their top 5):

• Dan Szymborski‘s top 5 Dec 2013: Beane, Friedman, Daniels, Mozeliak, Rizzo (from a chat).
• MLBtraderumors ran a poll in April of 2013 where you can vote, and the top 5 crowd-source vote-getters are: Beane, Friedman, Mozeliak, Cashman and Sabean.
• The NYPost’s Ken Davidoff ranks GMS every off-season and he came in with Friedman, Beane, Daniels, Dombrowski and Mozeliak in Dec 2013 (he has Cashman way too high, but he is a NY-based writer and focuses on the entire body of work).
• Rantsports.com’s GM Power rankings from Aug 2013 (which I think are misguided mostly because of how low Beane is): Daniels, Cherington, Friedman, Huntington, Antonelli
• And lastly this oddly titled “Sexiest GMs” ranking from Dec 2012 caused some laughs at the time.  Towers, Beane, Moore, Cashman, Hoyer.

Thoughts?  Think I have some guys too high and some too low?  Discuss in the comments.

 

Wendy Thurm reviews legal matters for Fangraphs, and her writing is excellent.  In her latest article, she gives updates on several ongoing legal battles involving MLB.  Its an excellent read.  Here’s a quick review of the current issues, how I think they’ll play out and then how I *wish* they would play out, as a baseball fan and a fan of all that is right and just in the world :-).  I won’t go into a full description of the issue (read Thurm’s article for more, because she also links to her past stories to provide full context of the issues).  Then at the end of this post we’ll talk about the Nats-MASN issue, which lingers without resolution but received a very intriguing piece of news this week (and thus has come up in the comments elsewhere).  Read on…

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Houston Astros/CSN Houston

Issue: CSN Houston couldn’t get most of the cable companies in Houston to pay its fee demands, so 60% of local residents can’t watch the games and CSN Houston just went chapter 11.  (There’s more to this story than this sentence; Thurm’s article has links to more detailed overviews).

How I think it will play out: I think the fact that CSN Houston is now in Chapter 11 will grease the skids towards getting the games onto the local carriers at significantly cheaper fees, which means less money in the Astro’s pocket.  Oh, and they probably lose their ownership percentage too as the bankruptcy court pays out debtors.

How I wish it would play out: I think the Astros have dug their own grave here.  Lots of executives and baseball pundits are praising their “purposely bad” strategy, which has resulted in 3 straight #1 overall picks, three straight “worst in the majors” seasons, and they’ll likely challenge for a 4th straight such season in 2014.  This may be a great long term strategy … but if I was a season ticket holder or a suite renter I’d be beyond livid at the product being put on the field.  You want me to pay to see your team play?  Then show me you’re at least *trying* to field a competitive, entertaining team.  In that respect I don’t feel the Astros deserve nearly anything close to the RSN fees it’s getting.  The fees Houston gets should be commensurate with the product its putting on the field; make them sign a cheap deal until they’re good again, and then they can re-negotiate.

Alex Rodriguez Suspension

Issue: Alex Rodriguez got an unprecedented suspension not entirely in line with the JDA signed between MLB and the MLBPA, and is suing everyone and their brother to try to get reparations and/or reversals.

How I think it will play out: I think union arbitration processes are sacred and the courts are not about to change that.  All A-Rod’s lawsuits to that end will be tossed, he’ll serve his suspension, perhaps he’ll play some independent league baseball or go to Cuba or something (boy wouldn’t that be a thumbing of the nose to America).  And then sometime in the off-season of 2014-2015 the Yankees will outright release him, nobody else will pick him up, and A-Rod will go the way of Barry Bonds with his hundreds of millions of dollars and ruined reputation.

How I wish it would play out: I’ve gone on record a couple times in this space (here and here) about how I think both sides are culpable in this mess.  I believe A-Rod continued to dope and more and more I believe he showed a distinct pattern of cheating to the point where I don’t have a problem if he never played again.  But in the meantime I believe what MLB did to pursue A-Rod went far above bounds, and I believe that Selig was colluding with the Yankees owners in some respects (just as I believe Selig has organized collusion among the owners against players and/or the MLBPA several times in the past).  I wish MLB would lose its anti-trust exemption so that a number of the unsavory situations in the game could see the light of day in a courtroom.  It’ll never happen.

San Jose vs MLB/Giants and Athletics

Issue: Oakland wants and needs to get out of its sh*tty stadium and San Jose is an ideal spot to move.  Except that San Francisco is claiming that as part of its god-given “territory” despite evidence that it was once Oakland’s to begin with and the then-Oakland owner “gave” it to SF out of gratitude.  Meanwhile, San Jose filed an antitrust lawsuit to try to compel movement in the interminable “blue-ribbon panel” that Bud Selig appointed years ago but which has done nothing.

How I think it will play out: Well, the lawsuit that San Jose filed against MLB has no chance of winning.  How do I think the whole Oakland moving thing will play out?  Unfortunately, I think the commissioner (who, remember, works at the behest of the owners) will *never* broach a territorial battle of one of its owners, because that’d set a precedent that they wouldn’t be able to fix (think about how many teams would *love* to move to Brooklyn and immediately have a 10m person fan base…Tampa Bay would be there tomorrow with their NY-based ownership group).  So Oakland will continue to be stuck in Oakland until maybe possibly they decide to test a new market in Portland or San Antonio or Charlotte.  Except that (of course) all those markets also have the same territorial rights (from Seattle and Houston and Washington/Atlanta respectively), so maybe that’s a non-starter too.  *sigh*.

How I wish it would play out: I wish the Giants would just be forced to admit that San Jose is not part of their territory.  Perhaps when they played in Candlestick and it was workable to drive from San Jose to the south of the city to see a game.  Now?  The heart of San Jose is 50 miles from the Giants stadium, which is in the middle of the city with limited parking.  It is exactly akin to driving from DC to Baltimore on a mid-week night to see a game … except that the Baltimore stadium has acres of parking paved out.  Oh and if you realistically wanted to make a 7:05 start in Baltimore and you lived in Northern Virginia … you’d be leaving your house at 4:30 to ensure you beat the traffic.  For that reason, I feel that the A’s should be allowed to move to San Jose and re-distribute the fan-bases of the Bay area.  Large swaths of the Oakland suburbs in east bay would now be so much closer to AT&T park than the A’s stadium that they may start patronizing the Giants, while huge swaths of the south bay would now have an easily accessible team to visit and follow.  It’ll never happen though.

Antitrust challenge to MLB Blackout Policy

Issue: Thanks in part to the whole “territory” issue mentioned above, MLB now finds itself with these arcane blackout policies that are incredibly unfair to people who live in certain “multi-team territory” states and who depend on MLB.tv to watch games.  If you live in some places like Iowa, south Nevada, Oklahoma, Connecticut, etc then you may be completely blocked from watching your local team altogether, thanks to MLB blacking it out and your local cable channel perhaps not carrying your favorite team’s games.

How I think it will play out: I’m sure MLB will continue to claim that it can’t compete against its RSNs … not while these RSNs continue to line the pockets of owners.  Remember, everything baseball does is about putting extra pennies in the owner pockets.  See the CBA, limits on amateur spending, the cap on posting fees for Japanese players, everything.

How I wish it would play out: How hard would it be to just pipe in the RSN feed to MLB.tv in these blackout areas?  You’d be showing local customers their local commercials and ending the blackouts.  Is that just too simple?  If RSN’s are worried about ratings … just add in the MLB.tv ratings.  In this day and age, where companies now can track TV watching far better than the Nielsen ratings ever could (don’t believe me?  How did Tivo know that the infamous wardrobe-gate incident was the most “rewound event” ever unless they’re tracking our watching patterns FAR more closely than we know?)

 

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Thurm also maintains an equally excellent overview of the Regional Sports Network (RSN) deals in place for MLB teams, so that fans can see just how ridiculously unjust the current revenue distribution is in the game.  By way of example; the Dodgers are getting an unbelievable $340M/year from their RSN deal while Pittsburgh gets $18M.  Yeah; that’s pretty much the definition of an uneven monetary playing field.  Yes some of this money goes into a revenue sharing pot, but the lions share of it stays with the team, and enables the Dodgers to have a payroll 5-6 times that of most of its competitors.

I bring up this last point because (in case you didn’t know or havn’t been reading the comment sections here) Jonah Keri recently published an excellent “expose” of the downfall of the Baltimore Orioles under the “leadership” of Peter Angelos, and it contains a very interesting nugget of information about the ongoing Nats-O’s MASN struggle.  Thurm didn’t go into this particular issue because it isn’t a “legal issue,” meaning there’s no lawsuit pending.  Not yet anyway; Keri discovered that MLB has been making secret under the table payments to the Nats to make up for the obvious and clear RSN revenue shortfall that the Nats are being screwed out of in the current MASN deal, and Keri alleges that these payments are being made in order to PREVENT a lawsuit from Ted Lerner and the Nats ownership group.  Which only makes sense to me.

Washington’s market is about the same size as Dallas, in terms of population.  It is significantly more wealthy.  However the baseball-watching fan-base isn’t as developed as in other mature baseball markets.  You can easily make the argument that the Nats should be getting a comparable deal to what the Texas Rangers on some levels, but not others.  The Rangers are getting a whopping $150M/year from their deal while the Nats get $29M (plus whatever under-the-table cash from MLB) from MASN.  Its no wonder the Nats have demanded $100M from Angelos, and its frankly ridiculous that Angelos’ thinks his counter of $35M is anywhere close to equitable.  And its no wonder this hasn’t been resolved yet, not when the sides are $70M apart.  That being said, Keri lays out a rather reasonable explanation why Angelos is worried about this whole deal, and why it may be impacting his on-the-field product.

How I think it will play out: a deal is a deal, and I’ll bet the Nats are stuck with this deal for the long term.  Thanks Bud!

How I wish it would play out: I wish the league would just recognize its deal with Angelos was hopeless and force a one-time buyout fee and/or a splitting of the RSNs.  I’d love to see a buyout of the deal (costing hundreds of millions of dollars), and then a new RSN and/or a joining forces with CSN Washington (who already broadcasts Wizards and Caps games) to create a strong Washington DC RSN.  I’d even be willing to throw some ownership percentage as an appeasement to Angelos.  Maybe we can do some partnership deals with MASN to broadcast Orioles games in the DC area on CSN-Washington2.   Let Washington control its own destiny.

 

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Editor Note: I corrected Wendy Thurm’s name throughout; I had it as “Thrum.”  Thanks to commenter Wally for pointing this out.

When I last wrote about Alex Rodriguez, it was in August of 2013 in a semi vitriolic post about how slimy the whole situation seemed to be.

That was before I read the Steve Fishman‘s excellent article in the New York Magazine, published 12/1/13.

Its a good, long-form internet read.  Eight pages/screens.  Plenty of 4-letter adjectives if you’re sensitive to such things.  The article seems to tell the entire narrative in a far more understandable way than I’d ever heard it, tying together the various incidents and episodes that now encompass the entirety of the story.  And the lengths to which MLB has apparently gone in order to go after one player cause disbelief.  As others have said better than I; its hard to make out A-Rod to be a sympathetic figure, but the tyranny of Bud Selig, Rob Manfred and the entire MLB organization in this situation is just beyond belief.

I think the best part of this entire story was the following. An ex-con stole a flash-drive with copies of the player’s names who were using illicit materials from the former employee who stole it from the discredited doctor Tony Bosch, who owed him exactly $4,000 despite the fact he was making tens of thousands of dollars in untraceable cash from the baseball players.  The ex-con sold this information to MLB for $125,000 in cash, meeting in a diner wearing shorts and a t-shirt … but secretly video-taped the transaction so that he could then sell the video of the transaction to the A-Rod camp for $200,000!  Only in America.

This absolutely has the makings of a movie like The Informant! in its future.  If you have a few minutes to kill, give this story a read.

(Editor’s note: I edited this post and corrected the name of the magazine and one name after posting).

Predictions versus Results review.  Did we go 8-for-8 in the BBWAA awards?  How about 12-for-12 including the Sporting News awards?  A tough task  (the Sporting News awards are notoriously squirrely).

Here was my 2013 Prediction post from Early October.  For some past history, here’s the 2012 version of this post, and here’s 2010 and 2011 prediction pieces as well in case you forgot who won the 2010 AL MVP (Josh Hamilton in a landslide; oh how far he has fallen).

Lets review my predictions versus the results.

American League:

• AL MVP: Predicted Miguel Cabrera.  Actual: Cabrera.
• AL Cy Young: Predicted Max Scherzer.  Actual: Scherzer.
• AL Rookie of the Year: Predicted Wil Myers.  Actual: Myers.
• AL Mgr: Predicted Terry Francona.  Actual: Francona.
• AL GM: Predicted Billy Beane.  Actual: Ben Cherington.
• AL Comeback Player of the Year: Predicted Scott Kazmir.  Actual: Mariano Rivera.

National League:

• NL MVP: Predicted: Andrew McCutchen.  Actual: McCutchen.
• NL Cy Young: Predicted Clayton Kershaw.  Actual: Kershaw.
• NL Rookie of the Year: Predicted  Jose Fernandez.  Actual: Fernandez.
• NL Mgr: Predicted Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh.  Actual: Hurdle.
• NL GM: Predicted Neal Huntington, Pittsburgh.  Actual: Huntington (2nd overall; best NL executive)
• NL Comeback Player of the Year: Predicted Francisco Liriano.  Actual: Liriano.

Discussion:

• AL MVP: Predicted Miguel Cabrera.  Actual: Cabrera.  Another year, another set of whiny posts from the ever-obstinate stat crowd about the AL MVP.  Cabrera gets first place on 23/30 ballots and cruises to victory.   I’ll say this: if you want a “best player” award that’s just driven by the WAR standings, then convince the BBWAA to create one.  A batting version of the Cy Young Award.  Oh but first you have to explain why the three WARs (Fangraphs, baseball-reference and Baseball Prospectus) don’t actually agree with each other, or why they vary so much, use different input parameters, change over time, and depend on defensive statistics that basically depend on estimates and admit they cannot measure every aspect of the game.   Until then, you have to deal with the vague definition of “valuable” and explain how someone can be the “most valuable player” on a team that finished last in its division.   In the mean-time, check out the voting; someone voted Trout SEVENTH in this race; i’m sure there’s going to be plenty of whiny posts in the baseball blogosphere about this reporter (yup, there were).
• AL Cy Young: Predicted Max Scherzer.  Actual: Scherzer.  Scherzer won overwhelmingly, getting 28 of 30 first place votes.  What’s more amazing is seeing who else got first place votes.  Anibal Sanchez?   Wow.  Who looked at the Detroit rotation and made the determination that Sanchez was the guy who led the line and not one of his teammates?
• AL Rookie of the Year: Predicted Wil Myers.  Actual: Myers.   Tampa’s Wil Myers won in more or less a landslide, getting 23 of 30 first place votes.  It was a down year in the AL for rookies but Myers continues to show why the Tampa-Kansas City trade will haunt Royals fans for years to come.
• AL Mgr: Predicted Terry Francona.  Actual: Francona.  I think the right guy won here; if you look at what Cleveland did this year with the squad they had, the accomplishment of Francona becomes even more distinct.  The vote was closer than I thought it would be (he took 16 of 30 1st place votes) over John Ferrell of Boston.  Bob Melvin gets some very deserved votes as well.  I was worried that this award would go to the Red Sox guy after their worst to first season (much like I believe the GM award was seemingly selected).
• AL GM: Predicted Billy Beane.  Actual: Ben Cherington.  I completely disagree with this selection, but am somewhat irked with myself for being “talked out” of selecting Cherington by a column I read earlier this year about Beane.  Yes Cherington did an amazing job moving his malcontents and signing the players that enabled the Red Sox to win another World Series.  But honestly; how can you be the executive of the year with the 2nd or 3rd highest payroll in the game??  If Boston makes a $15M/year mistake in free agency … they just get another guy.  If a team like Tampa or Pittsburgh or Oakland makes a $15M/year mistake, it cripples them for years to come.  That’s why I feel a GM from a small market team that makes the playoffs is absolutely more deserving of this award over a major market GM, every time.
• AL Comeback Player of the Year: Predicted Scott Kazmir.  Actual: Mariano Rivera.   I have no problems with this award; in fact i’m kind of mad at myself for not thinking about Rivera.  Everything about his career is amazing, and the last year, where he pitched at all-star levels after missing an entire season and being at such an advanced age just cements his legacy even more.

National League

• NL MVP: Predicted: Andrew McCutchen.  Actual: McCutchen.   This one ended up being pretty easy to predict, an entirely narrative driven vote.  See my post on Carlos Gomez for why I say that. McCutchen got 28 of 30 first place votes, only missing out on the two St. Louis voters supporting Yadier Molina.
• NL Cy Young: Predicted Clayton Kershaw.  Actual: Kershaw.  First place on 29 of 30 ballots, which i’m sure will touch off faux-anger articles the next day about why he wasn’t unanimous.  Our own Jordan Zimmermann got a slew of 3rd and 4th place votes (but ironically none from the local Washington writers who voted) and finished 7th overall.
• NL Rookie of the Year: Predicted  Jose Fernandez.  Actual: Fernandez.  In a race that looked like it would be too difficult to call earlier in the season, Fernandez ended up dominating (taking 26 of 30 first place votes).  He wins over Yasiel Puig and a slew of excellent candidates.  Ironic how Shelby Miller finishes third but his fellow rookie teammate Michael Wacha was the post-season hero (and may be the more coveted player, since Miller’s name is already in trade rumors).
• NL Mgr: Predicted Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh.  Actual: Hurdle.  This was perhaps the easiest award to predict after the NL Cy Young; Hurdle took first place on 25 of 30 ballots.
• NL GM: Predicted Neal Huntington, Pittsburgh.  Actual: Huntington (2nd overall; best NL executive).  Huntington’s slew of moves on the trade and free agency markets over the last couple of years, combined with the team (finally?) showing some dividends from its drafting and farm system had them in the playoffs despite one of the lowest payrolls in the league.  Huntington is an easy choice for best NL executive.
• NL Comeback Player of the Year: Predicted Francisco Liriano.  Actual: Liriano.  No surprise here: Liriano went from being fantasy waiver wire chaff to one of the best pitchers in the league this year.  How much longer can he keep this level of performance going from here?

I took out my two predicted “Firemen” of the year because, well, I have no idea if or when they’ll be announced.  The Rolaids relief man of the year award may be kaput; the website is down, they apparently havn’t announced it for 2013 despite every other post-season award having already been given out, and I wanted to post this sucker.

So in the end, I went 8/8 in major awards, 10/12 in all awards.  Not bad.  Of course, as one prominent writer pointed out, predicting the 8 main BBWAA awards this year wasn’t the hardest task in the world.   So I won’t crow too much at my own predictive capabilities this year 🙂

[Editor’s Note: I posted this initially on October 29th, 2013, and didn’t get a SINGLE comment.  Maybe it got lost in the World Series hoopla; maybe all the readers of this blog were taking a post-season Nats break.  I’m reposting this and changing all the cases to past tense in the wake of 11/14/13’s MVP voting.  I’d like to get some discussion here; if you are an ardent Mike Trout supporter and use WAR as part of your argument, i’d like to hear your thoughts on this post].

The title of this post says it all.  It is a simple question.

Brewers break-out star Carlos Gomez led the NL in bWAR in 2013.  Gomez played for a non-playoff team.  He augmented his 24-homer/.506 slugging bat with speed on the basepaths (40 SBs) and plus defense in center (he was just named to Bill James Fielding Bible Team as the best defensive Center Fielder in the game and won a Gold Glove).  Yet Gomez lost out on the MVP award, which went to Andrew McCutchen, a player who trailed him in the bWAR standings but who played for a playoff team.

Sounds an awful lot like the Mike Trout/Miguel Cabrera comparison, doesn’t it?

Gomez didn’t just lose out; he wasn’t even named a FINALIST for the NL MVP, meaning he wasn’t even in the top 3 candidates in the NL.  In fact, Gomez came in NINTH!  He wasn’t even close to winning despite leading the league in one version of WAR.

Why did nobody talk about Carlos Gomez for the NL MVP?  In fact, in the litany of post-season award prediction pieces I read, he was never really even mentioned.  You heard about McCutchen, Clayton Kershaw and Paul Goldschmidt as the top 3 NL candidates, then you heard about guys from the other playoff teams (Yadier Molina or Matt Carpenter from St. Louis, Joey Votto from Cincinnati, or Freddie Freeman from Atlanta).  Where’s Gomez on this list?

If you are a critic of the Miguel Cabrera pick and maintain that Mike Trout deserves the MVP in the AL and use “WAR” as a basis for your argument … then are you similarly arguing that Gomez should have won in the NL MVP right now?

I think the entire Trout-Cabrera argument is tired; I’m tired of hearing it and I’m sure people are tired of talking about it.  The critics of those who support Cabrera for MVP like to talk about the “narrative” of the MVP, how the award criteria definition on the ballots seems to imply that the winner “should” come from a playoff team.  But I’m of the opinion that those who blindly live by the WAR stat and support Trout but do NOT similarly demand support of Gomez are falling victim to their own “narrative” as well.  And that narrative is continued obstinance to a cause without looking up to see what else fits their world-view.

Ask yourself; if you think Trout is the AL MVP (this year or last year) … then what’s your argument that Gomez is NOT the NL MVP this year?  Where’s all the narrative-driven arguments about how “you shouldn’t lose the MVP because your teammates were bad” or that “the MVP doesn’t have to come from a playoff team.”  Because if you make those arguments in favor of Trout and not in favor of Gomez, then you’re a “narrative hypocrite” just like someone who says the reverse and supports Cabrera and McCutchen BECAUSE they played on playoff teams.

This post is months in the making.  In WordPress I looked up the first revision and it was dated May 4th.  Its on at least its 50th revision.  Its crazy.  But its a fun piece to do, to kind of keep track of these awards throughout the season.  But with yesterday’s release of the top-3 candidates for each BBWAA award, I thought it was finally time to publish.  The top-3 announcement didn’t have too many surprises in it, but was eye opening for some of the also-rans in each category.

I like seeing how well I can predict these awards by reading the tea leaves of the various opinions that flow into my RSS feed (here’s 2012’s version of the same post with links to prior years).  The goal is to go 8-for-8 predicting the major awards, with an even loftier goal of going 12-for-12 adding in the unofficial Sporting News awards.  I succeeded in 8-for-8 in 2010 and 2011, but missed out last year by over-thinking the Manager of the Year award in the AL.   This year is going to be tougher; the NL Rookie award and the AL Manager of the Year award are going to be coin-flips.

Here’s links for the MLB Players of the Month, to include Player, Pitcher and Rookies of the month, though frankly these monthly awards don’t amount to much.  But they’re fun to go see who was hot and how they ended up (think Evan Gattis).

Here’s links to some mid-season award prediction columns from Tom Verducci, Matthew Pouliot and Jayson Stark.  Here’s an 8/27/13 post from Keith Law, a 9/5/13 post from Cliff Corcoran, and a 9/25/13 prediction piece from USA Today’s Frank Nightengale that may be very telling about the Cabrera/Trout debate.   Lastly a few end of season pieces from Stark, Passan, Pouliot NL and AL, Gammons, Keri, Olney, Heyman.

Lastly here’s a great Joe Posnanski piece complaining about the faults the typical BBWAA voter has in their methodology.  He touches on some themes I mention below.  Remember this is a prediction piece, not who I necessarily think should actually win.

Without further ado, here’s my predictions and thoughts on the awards (predicted winners in Blue).

• AL MVP:  Miguel Cabrera (May’s AL player of the month) and was leading the league in nearly every offensive category through a big chunk of the season before injuries cost him a lot of September.  There’s talk of another Cabrera-Mike Trout competition for the MVP in 2013, but I think the same results will hold as in 2012.  It comes down to the simple question; how can you be the “MVP” of a last place team?  That vastly over-simplifies the debate of course, but it is what it is.  I continue to be impatient with holier-than-thou writers who ignore the BBWAA definition of the award and who think this MVP should just be a ranking of the seasonal WAR table.  This award is not (yet) the “Best Player” award, and if it was then Trout would be the easy winner.  Of the also-rans:  Chris Davis tied the AL-record for pre-All Star break homers and finished with 53, but he’s likely #3 in this race.   Rounding out my top 5 would be Josh Donaldson and  Manny Machado.  Names briefly under consideration here earlier in the season (and possible top 10 candidates) include Joe Mauer and Evan Longoria.
  
• AL Cy Young: Max Scherzer started the season 13-0 and finished 21-3.  This will propel him to the award despite not being as quite as good overall as his top competition.  Yu Darvish was on pace for nearly 300 strikeouts for a while before finishing with 277 and is likely finishing #2.   Despite a losing record pitching for one of the worst teams in the league, Chris Sale pitched to a 140 ERA+ for the second season in a row and should be rewarded with a top-5 finish.  Hisashi Iwakuma has fantastic numbers in the anonymity and depression of Seattle and will also get top-5 votes.  Rounding out the top 5 could be one of many:  Clay Buchholz was unhittable in April and weathered  accusations of doctoring the baseball from the Toronto broadcast team (Jack Morris and Dirk Hayhurst specifically), but then got hurt and may fall out of the voting.   Felix Hernandez put up his typical good numbers early despite a ton of kvetching about his velocity loss early in the season, but tailed off badly in August to drop him from the race.  Anibal Sanchez‘s 17-strikeout game has him some buzz, and he led the league in both ERA and ERA+.    Matt Moore became the first young lefty to start 8-0 since Babe Ruth and somewhat quietly finished 17-4 for the game-163 winning Rays.  Lots of contenders here.  Predicted finish: Scherzer, Darvish, Iwakuma, Sale, Sanchez.
• AL Rookie of the Year: Wil Myers may be the winner by default.  Nobody else really stands out, and the biggest off-season narrative involved Myers and the big trade, meaning that nearly every baseball fan and writer knows of Myers’ pre-MLB exploits.  Jose Iglesias put up good numbers in the Boston infield before being flipped to Detroit, and is a great candidate but most of his value resides in his defense, meaning old-school writers won’t vote for him over Myers.   Past that, the candidates are slim.  Justin Grimm‘s fill-in starts for Texas were more than adequate.  Nick Tepesch is also holding his own in Texas’ rotation.  Coner Gillaspie and Yan Gomes are in the mix.  Texas’ Martin Perez put himself in the race with a solid year and got some last-minute exposure pitching in the game-163 tie-breaker.  Leonys Martin is another Texas rookie that has quietly put up good numbers.  Myers’ Tampa Bay teammate Chris Archer could get some votes.  Predicted finish: Myers, Iglesias, Perez, Archer and Martin.
• AL Mgr: John Ferrell in Boston for going worst to first may be the best managerial job, but Terry Franconia in Cleveland deserves a ton of credit for what he’s done with significantly less resources in Cleveland and should win the award.  Its hard to underestimate what Joe Girardi has done in New York with injuries and the media circus this year, but this award usually goes to a playoff bound team.  I’ll go Franconia, Ferrell, Girardi.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL GM: Initially I was thinking Ben Cherington, Boston.  He traded away all those bad contracts, brought in several guys under the radar, leading to a 30 game swing in its W/L record.  Though, I agree with David Schoenfield; with Oakland’s 2nd straight AL West title it’s hard not to give this to Billy Beane.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL Comeback Player of the Year: Nate McLouth has come back from the absolute dead for Baltimore, though technically he was decent last year too.  Josh Donaldson has come out of nowhere for Oakland, but really had nowhere to come “back” from.  John Lackey and Scott Kazmir both rebounded excellently from injury plagued seasons.  I think the winner has to be Kazmir by virtue of his slightly better record over Lackey.  Editor’s update: this award was already given and I got it wrong: Mariano Rivera won for his great 2013 comeback; I completely forgot about him.  We’ll cover the results versus my predictions in a future post.
• (Unofficial “award”): AL Fireman of the Year: Greg Holland, despite some sympathetic desire to give it to Mariano Rivera on his way out.  Joe Nathan is also in the AL discussion.  Jim Johnson is not; despite leading the league in saves for the 2nd year in a row he blew another 9 opportunities.  I hope the voters see past that.

Now for the National League:

• NL MVP:  Andrew McCutchen is the shoe-in to win, both as a sentimental favorite for the Pirates first winning/playoff season in a generation and as the best player on a playoff team.  Clayton Kershaw‘s unbelievable season won’t net him a double, but I’m guessing he comes in 2nd in the MVP voting.  Paul Goldschmidt has become a legitimate stud this year and likely finishes 3rd behind McCutchen and Kershaw.  Rounding out the top 5 probably are two from Yadier Molina, Freddie Freeman and possibly Joey Votto as leaders from their respective playoff teams.  Also-rans who looked great for short bursts this season include the following:  Jayson Werth (who is having a career-year and making some people re-think his albatros contract),  Carlos Gomez (who leads the NL in bWAR, won the Gold glove and led the NL in DRS for centerfielders but isn’t being mentioned at all for the NL MVP: isn’t that odd considering the overwhelming Mike Trout debate??  I’ve made this case in this space to little fanfare in the past; if you are pro-Trout and are not pro-Gomez, then you’re falling victim to the same “MVP Narrative” that you are already arguing against), and maybe even Matt Carpenter (St. Louis’ real offensive leader these days).
• NL Cy Young:  Clayton Kershaw put together his typical dominant season and won’t lose out to any of his darling competitors.  He may be the only unanimous vote of the major awards.  Marlins rookie phenom Jose Fernandez probably finishes #2 behind Kershaw before squeaking out the RoY award.   Matt Harvey was the All-Star game starter and looked like he could have unseated Kershaw, but a later season swoon and a torn UCL in late August ended his season and his chances early.  He still likely finishes #3.   Others who will get votes here and there: Jordan Zimmermann (who nearly got to 20 wins),  Adam Wainwright (who is back to Ace-form after his surgery and is put together a great season), St. Louis teammate Shelby Miller,  Patrick Corbin (Pitcher of the Month in May), Cliff Lee (who has been great for the mediocre Phillies), and perhaps even Zack Greinke (who finished 15-4; did you know he was 15-4?).  Predicted finish: Kershaw, Fernandez, Harvey, Wainwright, Corbin.
• NL Rookie of the Year: Seems like its coming down to one of 5 candidates: Fernandez, Puig, Miller, Ryu and Teheran.  I’d probably vote them in that order.  Shelby Miller has stayed the course filling in St. Louis’ rotation and may also get Cy Young votes and seemed like the leading candidate by mid June.  Evan Gattis, the great feel-good story from the Atlanta Braves, started out white-hot but settled down in to relative mediocracy.  Tony Cingrani continued his amazing K/9 pace from the minors at the MLB level, filling in quite ably for Red’s ace Johnny Cueto but was demoted once Cueto returned and struggled with injuries down the stretch.   Didi Gregorious, more famous for being the “other” guy in the Trevor Bauer trade, has performed well.  Meanwhile don’t forget about Hyun-Jin Ryu, the South Korean sensation that has given Los Angeles a relatively fearsome frontline set of starters.  Yasiel Puig took the league by storm and hit 4 homers his first week on the job.  Jose Fernandez has made the jump from A-Ball to the Marlins rotation and has been excellent.  Julio Teheran has finally figured it out after two call-ups in the last two years and has a full season of excellent work in Atlanta’s rotation.  The question is; will narrative (Puig) win out over real performance (Fernandez)?  Tough call.
• NL Mgr: Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh.  No real competition here.  Some may say Don Mattingly for going from near firing in May to a 90 win season … but can you really be manager of the year with a 250M payroll?
• (Unofficial award) NL GM: Neal Huntington, Pittsburgh.  It really has to be Huntington for pulling off the low-profile moves that have paid off with Pittsburgh’s first winning season in 20 years.  Ned Colletti‘s moves may have resulted in the best team in the league, but he has the benefit of a ridiculously large checkbook and I hope he doesn’t win as a result.
• (Unofficial “award”): NL Comeback Player of the Year: I’d love to give this to Evan Gattis for his back story but that’s not the point of this award.  I’m thinking Carlos Gomez with Milwaukee for his massive out-of-nowhere season.  But honestly the award has to go to Francisco Liriano.  Editor’s update: this award was already given and I got it right: Liriano indeed won.
• (Unofficial “award”): NL Fireman of the Year: Craig Kimbrel, who looks to finish the year with a sub 1.00 ERA for the second year running.   Edward Mujica and Aroldis Chapman in the discussion but not really close.