Nationals Arm Race

How far will Atlanta get in Chipper Jones' swan song? Photo Thearon Henderson/Getty Images via nytimes.com

Everyone has to do a prediction piece, right?

First, a re-cap.  Here’s my predictions at the beginning of the season for how the divisions would shape up;

• AL East: New York Yankees
• AL Central: Detroit
• AL West: Los Angeles Angels
• AL Wild Cards: Tampa, Texas

AL Narrative: 2/3 for divisional winners and 3/5 for playoff teams.  Not bad.  Oakland and Baltimore shocked everyone, as did the Angels’ failure to really play to their talent/salary.

• NL East: Philadelphia
• NL Central: Milwaukee
• NL West: San Francisco
• NL Wild Cards: Atlanta, Cincinnati

NL Narrative: 1/3 on divisional winners, 3/5 on playoff winners.  It was hard to see Philadelphia falling to third place, just as it was hard to see Washington improve 17 games from 2011.

Now for the playoffs:

• AL Wildcard: Texas over Baltimore
• ALDS: Texas over New York Yankees
• ALDS: Detroit over Oakland
• ALCS: Texas over Detroit

AL Narrative: Texas loses the AL title on the last day of the season, but I still think they’re the best AL team.  This is the wake-up call they need to power through the playoffs.  The Yankees are given a huge disservice to have to face Texas on the road right out of the gate; a matchup I don’t think they can win.  Detroit could get the ALCS win but I don’t doubt it; Texas owned them this season (winning 3 of 4 in Detroit and 7 of 10 overall).   Oakland are red-hot but can’t match up with Detroit’s pitching.

• NL Wildcard: Atlanta over St. Louis
• NLDS: Atlanta over Washington
• NLDS: Cincinnati over San Francisco
• NLCS: Atlanta over Cincinnati

NL Narrative: Atlanta throws unbeatable ace Kris Medlen to win the play-in game, then promptly takes the first two games of the NLDS on the heels of their sweep of the Nats in mid September.  The Nats can’t overcome Medlen’s only NLDS start and lose the series when they can’t sweep a 3-game set here in Washington next week.  Meanwhile San Francisco’s bats go quiet against Cincinnati and the Reds club their way into the NLCS.  Medlen gets two starts in the NLCS, shortening the series to the point where Atlanta cannot be beaten.

World Series: Atlanta beats Texas.  Story book ending for Chipper Jones, and another heartbreak for Texas as they lose their third consecutive World Series.  Texas just isn’t as strong pitching-wise as they were last year, don’t have enough lefties to shut Atlanta down, and I don’t think Yu Darvish will be up to the challenge.  Meanwhile Medlen continues his other-worldly streak of starts; Atlanta has now won 23 consecutive games which Medlen has started (12 this year and another 11 to close out 2010).  There’s no reason not to think that streak won’t continue into the post season; he’s given up a grand total of NINE earned run in his 12 starts this season.

This isn’t the most positive prediction for the post-season for the home team, but the Nats sputtering end to the season does not inspire confidence.  Swept in Atlanta, splits with Milwaukee and then pounded in St. Louis means they’re walking a tightrope in the post-season.  If they get a win in Atlanta, they may win the NLDS.  But the 2-away/3-home structure really works to the detriment of the higher seed; its relatively easy for a team to win 2 straight at home … while its relatively difficult to win 3 straight at home.  But that’s the predicament the Nats may face when they return to Washington.  And get ready for the inevitable “You shouldn’t have shut down Strasburg” pieces, because they’re a-coming unless Washington wins the World Series.  In fact I’ll bet writers already have them penned and in the can, ready to publish (kind of like obituaries for old movie stars that are in hospice).

However, if somehow Atlanta blows the wild-card game I reserve the right to completely re-do these predictions 🙂

Courtesy of Nat Enquirer; this video of Jimmy Rollins classlessly giving the Nats zero credit for having the best record in the majors in 2012.

Specifically, “With us healthy, they’re a second-place team. But we weren’t.”

But that’s the problem that Rollins needs to understand; when you build your team on the backs of aging players … you’re NEVER going to be as healthy as you expect to be.  There’s a reason the Nats didn’t lose ONE start to injury all year; our pitchers are younger and healthier.  Philadelphia has built a rotation of aging stars and free agents.  Cliff Lee missed 3 starts this year, Cole Hamels missed a couple, and Roy Halladay missed 7 or 8.  Those guys are 33, 28 and 35 this year.  They’re not getting any younger and likely will miss starts again in 2013.

How about Philadelphia’s positional players?  Ryan Howard only played 71 games.  Chase Utley only 83.  Placido Polanco just 90.   Carlos Ruiz missed all of August.  Maybe you can argue that the two big names from this list should start 2013 healthy and that may make a difference.  Fair enough, except that Howard is 32, Utley is 33, and both now have a slew of injuries on their resume.  Nobody should assuming those guys are playing 150+ next year.

Meanwhile, Washington had a TON of time lost to injuries in its offense.   Desmond missed a month.  Morse missed two.  Werth missed half the season.  Zimmerman lost a few weeks.  And we went through no less than SIX catchers on the season.  And the team persevered, struggled offensively most of the early part of the year, and maintained its lead.

Philadelphia made its choices, signing major dollar contracts to extend its own guys and to buy its rotation and its key bullpen members.  And now you have to live with those decisions, which leave you with an aging roster overpaying for the decline years of your players.  Meanwhile Washington rode the wave of 100-loss seasons, committed to building its farm system, didn’t overpay for Free Agents, and now sits with one of the youngest teams in baseball (3rd youngest pitching staff and youngest on-field staff), with a below-average payroll and the best record in the majors.

Sour Grapes Jimmy Rollins.  You should get used to 3rd place because its probably where the Phillies reside for the next several years, until you can jettison your ill-signed contracts and start over.

Jeffrey Loria, a wanted man in Miami. Photo unknown via si.com

I think in my next life my job title will be “really good buddy of Bud Selig.”  That way I can be assured of running one baseball franchise into the ground (Expos), then having a baseball franchise gift-wrapped for me (Marlins), get to do all sorts of unethical and a-moral things like blatantly deceive politicians to rob taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars (to build their new stadium) while continuing to massively profit from my venture (as we discovered when the books of the Marlins were leaked).

This is the life of Jeffrey Loria.

But the news doesn’t get much better for the Marlins fans.  An off-season of spending to prepare for the opening of the new stadium included three major free agents,  none of which really made any sense:

• Jose Reyes, except you already had an all-star short stop in Hanley Ramirez
• Mark Buehrle, a career workhorse with a near .500 record but now being paid like an ace
• Heath Bell, millions of dollars for the most over-rated position on the team (closer).

The team also acquired $19M/year Carlos Zambrano.  The Reyes and Buehrle deals were heavily back-loaded, essentially grenades awaiting the team in a few  year’s time.

Halfway through the season, Ramirez was traded, Bell ineffective and demoted, replaced by a MLB-minimum salary guy in Steve Cishek, Zambrano buried in the bullpen and Buehrle sitting with a .500 record.   The Marlins moved a few other guys (the FA to be Anibel Sanchez, the disappointing Gaby Sanchez, and Edward Mujica namely) at the July deadline in a clear “white flag waving” move just a few months into their supposed “new phase of Marlins baseball.”  The team sits in last place, 22 games under .500 in a season they were supposed to compete.

The news doesn’t get any better for the team or the fans this past week:

• Ozzie Guillen has taken to insulting sports-writers and his owner on twitter and seems certain to get canned.
• The team reportedly is thinking about firing its President and GM.
• Loria has attacked his former manager (and current Braves manager) Fredi Gonzalez in the press for basically saying that Loria can’t get along with ANY manager.
• The team  has announced it won’t be spending nearly as much on payroll in 2013 as they did this year.

Wow: great time to be a Marlins fan!  And there’s really not much hope rising up from the minors; in the past the Marlins could get by with penny pinching and still field a competitive team on the backs of its excellent player development staff (you know, the same player development staff that fueled the Montreal Expos for years and which he ripped out and brought with him to Florida in 2004).   Now the Marlins farm system is considered to be one of the worst in the majors and is relatively devoid of rising talent.

Fun times ahead for Miami.  I hope you enjoy that brand new stadium that nobody will be coming to, Mr Loria.  Hey, at least the Nats can stop getting killed by Miami year after year head to head (Here’s our record against Florida/Miami over the past few years: 9-9 this year, 7-11 last year, 5-13, 6-12 and an amazing 3-14 in 2008).  With the Mets in a long-term rebuilding program and the Marlins cratering, we really only have to worry about two divisional rivals for the foreseeable future.

Harper has turned into a very good defensive CF. Photo Gary Vasquez/US Presswire via Natsinsider.com

Jim Bowden was the latest pundit to repeat the often-mentioned mantra “The Nats need a Center Fielder,” but this isn’t entirely a “pick on Jim Bowden” post.  Most pundits think the Nats are still in love with BJ Upton or newly in love with Michael Bourn and will aggressively pursue one or the other this coming off-season.  Now, that tired statement may have been true in the 2011 off-season, but anyone who still prints this now hasn’t been watching what has been going on in the Nats outfield this season.

To put it simply; Bryce Harper has turned into a very good defensive center fielder.  And there’s no reason to move him off the position for a number of years.

It only took about a week for rumors of Harper’s arm to circulate around the league; within a week or so 3rd base coaches were already playing it conservatively and refused to challenge his arm.  It only took a couple of Sportscenter highlight throws from the outfield to earn that praise.  Harper has 3 outfield assists on the year and probably won’t get too many more given the reputation he’s already earned.

But his arm is just one part of the equation.  Click here for the advanced fielding measure “UZR/150” for all 2012 center-fielders with at least 500 innings played.  Harper currently possesses a 28.6 UZR/150, good for 2nd in the league and far above vaunted defensive outfield wizard (and fellow Rookie phenom) Mike Trout.  In fact, he’s just ahead of Bourn and only behind reserve outfielder Craig Gentry.  To put this into english; right now Harper is just about the best defensive center field in the league.  He’s very fast, shows great range on the ball, and his errors have generally been on over-aggressive throws instead of dropped balls.

By way of UZR/150 comparison, Bourne is clearly a top defender, but the other rumored target Upton actually boasts a -1.3 UZR/150 right now, indicating that he’s actually costing his team runs.

The common narrative is that the Nats want a lead-off/center fielder type so they can move Harper to one corner and Jayson Werth the other and have a plus outfield all the way around.  But lets face it; that’d be a monumental waste of Harper’s defensive talents right now.  An .850 OPS hitting center fielder with 30 homer capabilities is one of the rarest commodities in baseball, and usually good ones only come around once in a generation.  We already knew Harper was such a generational talent, but even I was surprised to see just how well statistically he has played CF thus far.  Do the Nats need a prototypical lead-off hitter?  Yes …. but not as long as Werth is willing to be in that role.  Here’s a fact; Werth has an OBP of .426 hitting lead-off this year, which would be the 2nd best OBP in the league (behind the amazing Joey Votto) if he qualified.  When you have almost an entire lineup of guys who have 20-hr power, someone has to bat lead-off.

The other problem with the “Nats get a free agent CF” scenario is that it leaves no room in the outfield for Michael Morse.  Buying another outfielder pushes Morse to 1B, which pushes Adam LaRoche out the door.  Now, this scenario may happen regardless (LaRoche absolutely should parlay his 2012 season into a multi-year FA deal, or at least explore the possibility), but I’d rather have the positional flexibility to give someone like Tyler Moore more starts, or to give the resurgent Roger Bernadina starts against right-handed starters, or even keep LF the rotating door between Moore, Bernadina and Lombardozzi so that all three valuable players can get playing time.  And if you don’t think the team really wants to give Moore playing time, then you havn’t been paying attention to his season.

Lastly there’s this: spending money on an unneeded CF means less money to spend on pieces that we WILL need; money towards either Edwin Jackson or his rotational replacement, money towards some bullpen reinforcements, or perhaps money to extend a trade target that we leverage to free up some positional log-jams (middle infield for example, between our current starters and the upper-end reinforcements on the way in the high minors).

There’s been comparisions of Harper to the vaunted Mickey Mantle in the past; if Harper sticks in CF for the next decade, those comparisons will just be all the more viable.

Bill Mazeroski rounding third after hitting his 1960 Walk off Homer. Photo Getty Images

This is a great topic and a great article from ESPN’s Jim Caple yesterday.  What single baseball game would you want to travel back in time to see?

Caple surveyed a variety of people, from movie stars to current players to fellow baseball columnists, and listed their choices.  His article makes for a great read.  Some of the choices were great.  I won’t spoil all of them here; you have to read the article.

For me, the knee jerk answer was immediately one of two games:

1. Babe Ruth‘s “Called Shot” game from the 1932 World Series (Game 3), or
2. Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, which may have been the greatest game in the history of Baseball, featuring Bill Mazeroski‘s walk off home run.

The Called shot game is kind of a baseball cliche; it is one of those lasting legends of the game.  But the only reason to go see that game would be to answer this question; the game itself wasn’t that great.  The box-score reveals a game where the Yankees jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead on the called shot, the Cubs fought back but then back-to-back homers from Ruth and Lou Gehrig put the game away and it was never close after that.  I’d want to go back for the first INNING of that game, see the homer, then go to the 1960 game :-).

As it turns out, I’m not really that interested in finding out whether Ruth really called his shot for this reason: the Boss family happens to have a bit of inside information, believe it or not, on the game itself and whether or not it really occurred.  You see, we’re family friends with none other than the son (and grandson, who is my age and who i’ve known since childhood) of former baseball commissioner Kinesaw Mountain Landis, and he was actually AT THE GAME as a child guest of his father.  And I’m pretty sure he’ll tell you that Ruth did call the shot.

So, for me, I’d want to see the 1960 game.  Check out the box score from Game 7 of the 1960 world series.  Here’s the Recap:

• Pittsburgh jumps to a 4-0 lead early.
• Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle help spark a 4-run rally in the 6th to take a 5-4 lead.
• The  Yankees extend their lead to 7-5 in the top of the 8th.
• The Pirates rally for FIVE runs in the bottom of the 8th for a 9-7 lead.
• The Yankees’ two hall of famers Berra and Mantle manage to drive in the tying runs in the top of the 9th to make it 9-9.
• Mazeroski blasts a walk-off homer on a 1-0 count to lead off the bottom of the 9th and win the world series.

What a game!!  For all of us who thought last year’s Game 6 was amazing, this game looked even more amazing.  Plus you’d get to see two legends in Mantle and Berra.

Read the article and tell me in the comments what game you’d want to travel back for.  Disco Night?  1975 Game 6?  Don Larsen‘s perfect game?  Jackie Robinson‘s debut?  How about Game 7 of the 1924 series, a 12-inning affair featuring a slew of Hall of Famers and was also the last time Washington won a World Series?

Will the Greinke acquisition get the Angels out of the WC game? Photo Jeff Golden/Getty Images

Baseball Purist Alert: this opinion piece may not entirely please you.

I have to admit; as a life-long baseball fan I find myself constantly being at odds with myself over the “purity” of the game dating to its roots versus the natural progression of modern baseball as it adjusts to the current  sports climate.  Every change we’ve seen, from divisional play to wild cards to instant replay seems like an attack on the sanctity of the National Pasttime, and the sport which routinely traces its roots to stars from 70 years ago.

The latest Collective Bargaining Agreement added a second Wild Card in each league, and a one-game playoff between the two wild-card teams to advance into the divisional series.  Some purists were aghast with the addition of yet another non-divisional champ to the post season party.  However, as we’ve seen this season play out the second wild-card inarguably has some side-effects that I think are good for the game.  Lets talk about these intended (or unintended) impacts:

1. The additional Wild Card has kept more teams in the Playoff Race.  Here’s the standings as of 7/31/12 (a fantastic new feature I found at baseball-reference.com; you can pull standings as of any date in the history of the game).  8 of the 16 teams in the NL and arguably 9 or 10 of the teams in the AL were technically still “in” the race for a playoff spot.  More teams in the playoff race means longer sustained fan interest and less tanking or selling off of assets.

2. By virtue of #1, more teams were trying to improve at the Trade Deadline.  You can argue that more teams in the playoff hunt meant that fewer teams were sellers, and that lead to gridlock at the trade deadline.  But, some surprise selling teams (namely Miami and Philadelphia) injected new life to the trade deadline and had some teams making significant and crucial pickups.

3. An additional Wild Card still leaves Baseball with the lowest percentage of its teams in Post Season Play.  Hey; at least we’re not the NBA, where more than half the teams make the playoffs.  It still means something to make the playoffs, which is important.

4. The play-in game will be fantastic.  Nothing is as amazing as a one-game playoff to advance, and some of baseball’s most historic moments have come during these games.  Who would know who Bucky Dent was if not for his amazing home-run in the 1978 playoffs?  Both teams will be sending their Aces, both teams will be playing like its Game 7, and the neutral fan will be in heaven.

5. The additional Wild Card will mean that teams will play harder, longer into the season.  Why do you think we’re seeing the massive trade-deadline arms race between Western divisional rivals in both leagues?  The Angels/Rangers and the Dodgers/Giants were by far the most active teams at the deadline because they all know that the difference this year between winning the division and the wild-card is significant.  In years past we’ve seen teams almost not care if they won the division or dropped to the wild card; you were guaranteed not to meet your divisional rival until the LCS and the home field advantage in baseball is so slight that sometimes you could argue that playing away in a short series is more advantageous.

Why?  In a short series, its pretty easy to “steal” a game on the road and then hold serve and win 2 straight at home, knowing that the pressure is on the favorite and knowing that the under-dog can drop a game at home but still get a 5th/deciding game on the road.  In a 7-game series the same rule of thumb applies; its really difficult to get a 3-game sweep, but its really easy to get a 2-game split.  Especially considering that the home-field advantage in baseball is only about 56% but has been as low as 52% in the past decade (see this link at Baseball-Reference.com, which has the home-team winning percentage over the years).

Now we see the immedicate impact; the Angels and Rangers absolutely do not want any part of a coin-flip game with the 2nd wild card for this reason.  Primarily because…

6. The one-game play-in will significantly impact the advancing Wild Card Team.  You have to think that teams will send their Ace/#1 starter to the hill in the play-in game.  Why possibly save him for a series that you may not get to?  As a result, the wild card winner advances to play either the #1 seed or the #2 seed (if the #1 team is in their same division) having already spent their big arm.

Why do I see this as a good thing?  Because one major beef I’ve always had with Wild Cards is their relatively easy path to advance to the World Series.  Up until the last day of last season, the Cardinals were not even set to be a playoff team, and then they run to the World Series title.  We’ve already talked about the relatively small home field advantage baseball teams have.  Wild Card teams, more often than not, come into the playoffs “hotter” than the divisional champ that they then face.  This results in a significant number of Wild Card “upsets” in our history of divisional play and having Wild Cards advance far further than I’d normally like to see them, at the expense of divisional winners losing short series.  In the 17 years of divisional play/wild cards we’ve had:

• 5 Wild Card WS champions (including most recent St. Louis Cardinals plus 3-straight from 2002-4)
• Another 5 Wild Card WS runner-ups (including 3 straight from 2005-7)
• Overall, 10 of 34 World Series participants being Wild Cards, a rate of nearly 30%.
• 18 Wild Cards overall who won their Divisional Series out of 68 such series being played, a success rate of more than 25%.

Perhaps this is one last vestige of “baseball purism” in me, but I think the game needs to have more World Series winners who not only won the 8-team (now 10-team) playoff derby, but who also succeeded all year long and won their divisions.  Only three times in the divisional era has the team with the best record also won the World Series, 3 times out of 17 (the spreadsheet linked here is also available in the links section to the right-hand side of the blog, called “Best versus Winner.”  It needs updating for 2011 and 2012 champions in all sports, but shows just how infrequently the best regular season team wins in any sport.  A side effect of expanded playoffs in all sports, true, but a concerning trend for any sport purist).

In any rate, I’m hoping that the diminishing of the Wild Card one-game winner means that fewer Wild Cards run through the playoffs, which will lead to more “deserving” World Series participants.

Do I wish that Baseball would revert to the old, old days where there was one division and two pennant winners?  No, of course not.  In fact, I think Baseball would be best served by adopting the NFL’s 8 division alignment with 2 wild cards for a very neat post-season tournament where the two best teams got byes (in the link above, I posted some possible alignment possibilities when the whole re-alignment discussions really took hold in July 2011; my two expansion target cities were San Antonio and Portland).  But expansion in Baseball seems like such a difficult proposition that it may never happen (for the reasons explained in this post).  But the 2nd wild card seems to be setting up baseball fans for an exiting and “fairer” post season in 2012 and beyond.

After watching the Nats take 2 of 3 from the Rays this week, I’m left with one major thought: The Rays are one of the worst fundamental baseball teams I’ve seen play here.  For all the rumors of how Joe Maddon is a genius, his team certainly made mistake after mistake defensively.  Just in the 3rd inning of the game tonight they made three basic defensive mistakes:

– BJ Upton failed to properly prepare himself to throw home after catching a sac fly and was (for some inexplicable reason) surprised to see Danny Espinosa tagging up and scoring easily.

– Carlos Pena took a cut-off throw and failed to pay any attention to Ian Desmond, who alertly scampered to 2nd base without a throw.

– Matt Moore didn’t pay frankly any attention to Espinosa while on second base, allowing a double steal to occur, both runners of which eventually scored and proved to be the lead-changing runs that turned the game.

The Rays are the 2nd worst team in terms of errors in the league.  There’s specific questions about the constant shifts put in play by Maddon against players not necessarily known as pull hitters.   Their current third basemen situation is atrocious; a throwing error in the first game, a simple catch missed in the 2nd game (when Bryce Harper ran from 2nd on a ball to the shortstop) and a fielding error in the 3rd game.  Yes I know they’re missing Evan Longoria … but the Nats are missing their highest paid player right now too in Jayson Werth.  And, they clearly are pushing the limits of the rulebook as evidenced by the Joel Peralta pine-tar incident.

The Rays were probably lucky to avoid the sweep frankly; they got a win with their ace David Price giving up 4 runs in 7 innings while our soon-to-be-demoted #5 starter Chien-Ming Wang conspired to give away a game possibly for the last time for this team as a starter.

Seems to me the Rays need to tighten up their professionalism.

Werth's wrist issue has not helped his cause with pundits who ridiculed his contract in the first place. Photo AP/Richard Lipinski via cbssports.com

One of the things that’s always irked me as a Nats fan is the continual presence of Jayson Werth‘s 7yr/$126M contract on the ever present lists of “Worst Contracts in Baseball.”  Or the fact that when Ryan Zimmerman signed his $100M extension, an anonymous front office member was quoted as saying that the Nats now had “two $100M contracts but no $100M players.”  (paraphrased from memory, can’t find the original quote).

Lets face it: professional baseball (and to an extent most Professional Sports) is a unique industry when it comes to paying for performance.  Most players perform in their peak professional years for pennies on the dollar (especially those in pre-arbitration years) as compared to their general “worth” on the Free Agent market.  Teams can lock up players for at least 6 years and sometimes 8-9 years (depending on the amount of time they spent in the minors) once they are signed.  In most cases players are first reaching free agency in their early 30s, whereas most would agree that a player’s peak performance age is probably in the 27-28 timeframe.  That means that by the time a star  is finally ready to cash in and sign that life-defining guaranteed contract …. they’re mostly on the downside of their career.  This means that teams are almost always paying for players’ decline years, and it almost always means that teams are generally regretting these huge contracts almost the moment they’re signed.

Teams that want to add through Free Agency thus are almost always paying ahead for past performance.  And usually this means that, especially by the end of a long FA contract, teams are vastly overpaying for the performance they’re getting on the field.

So I asked this question; has anyone ever signed a “good” $100M+ contract?  Good meaning, did the player perform up to the value of the contract the entire way through it?  A group of friends of mine argued about the same topic while drinking beer in the bleachers at Nationals Park last week; lets revisit the conversation.

According to Cot’s site (now at Baseball Prospectus), there have been 35 such contracts of $100,000,000 or more.  I’ve divided these contracts into three categories: those that are in the past or are sufficiently worked through in 2012 as to pass judgement, those that were signed starting with 2011 (so they only have a season and a quarter to judge), and those that started in 2012 or in the future.  Of these 35 contracts, they break down as follows:

• Old enough to be Judge-able: 20
• Started in 2011: 5
• Started in 2012 or in the future: 10 (lots of big contracts handed out this past off season).

How would you judge these contracts?  Lets go by category: The rank is the rank of all time total value amongst all of these 35 contracts.

Category 1: Judgeable $100M contracts

Category 2: Too Early to really tell (signed/started in 2011) Contracts:

Category 3: 2012 and Future Extensions

Conclusions

• Of the 20 judge-able $100M contracts, 10 were unquestionably bad, 7 were good and the other 3 were arguable one way or the other (which, is still “bad” in that they weren’t huge successes).
• 3 of the 5 2011 contracts are widely panned as of this moment.
• Of the 10 nine figure contracts starting this year or later, at least 4 have been badly panned and really only Matt Kemp‘s contract looks like a winner from the onset.  Then again, judging a 6 year contract on 2 months of production is (goes without saying) the definition of a small sample size.

I’ve only identified 11 of these 35 contracts that were either “worth it” or which seem to be trending well.   So the answer to my blog question is definitely, “Yes, there have been a handful of 9-figure deals worth the money.”  However, 18 of these 35 contracts were either patently bad or are trending that way soon.  The other 7 that I’ve put somewhere in the middle may very well be considered losses; when you commit $100M as a franchise you expect near Hall of Fame productivity.

The lesson that I take away is this: a 6-9 year commitment for $18-$25M/year should be a guaranteed lock of productivity for your team, but as these contracts show it almost seems like a coin flip as to whether your franchise-defining contract will actually work out.  That’s scary stuff to consider as a GM and/or an owner.

Bonus Analysis: Team by Team: 18 of the 30 teams in baseball have rolled the dice on a 9 figure salary; how have they fared?

Look how many teams have tried once or twice and failed every time.   And notice that sometimes even a “good” contract can still be crippling.  Alex Rodriguez earned every penny of his massive contract in Texas … but the owners capped payroll and couldn’t build a good team around him, so the contract was viewed as a massive anchor for the team.  He had to be traded so that the team could rebuild (and as it turned out, be sold to a more competent owner).

Back to our Nats: Washington has handed out two 9-figure deals and both (while still early) are being panned in the media.  Werth‘s wrist injury and Zimmerman‘s continual dings aren’t helping.  Lets just hope that the kids keep competing and driving us forward.

Opinions?

Johnny Damon during his Boston reign. Photo unknown via metsmerized.com

With recent news that Johnny Damon has convinced another team (for 2012 its the Cleveland Indians) to give him more at-bats so that he can continue his march towards the magic 3,000 hit plateau, and with today’s Rob Neyer column that already assumes Damon is a hall of famer and asks, “Which cap will be on his Cooperstown plaque,” I have this to say:

How is it possible that Johnny Damon is a hall of fame player?

Here’s a few metrics for you:

• All Star Apperances: TWO!  Two times he’s been considered amongst the best 60 or so active players.
• Top 5 MVP votes: Zero
• Top 10 MVP votes: ZERO
• Top 20 MVP votes (as in, one of the 32 writers involved threw him a 10th place vote here and there): 4 times.
• Career OPS+: 105.  As in, compared to his fellow players he’s only about 5% better at the plate.
• Career OPS: .789, below the .800 line of respectability for modern day hitters.
• Defensive awards: Golden Gloves and Silver Sluggers: Zero.

I’m sorry, but in what world is this a hall of fame career?  Damon is the epitome of an accumulator, averaging nearly 700 plate appearances and 188 hits per year over his career and staying relatively healthy (never playing less than 140 games per year since his debut in 1996).  105 OPS+!  If he was a gold-glove calibre middle infielder maybe that’d be acceptable, but he’s a sub-par defensive outfielder who has never sniffed a defensive award.

I also go back to my tried-and-true argument related to All Star appearances and MVP voting; how can a player possibly be considered one of the greatest players of all time if he rarely, if ever, was considered one of the best players of his own time, on a year to year basis?  Great players earn all star appearances even in down years, while middling players never earn them.

For everyone who has vehemently argued against Jack Morris, essentially on the strength (weakness) of his career ERA (and by implication, ERA+) … I wonder who hypocritically is arguing FOR Damon.  Oh wait; Rob Neyer is.

Am I crazy?  Who out there thinks that Damon is worthy of a copper plaque in Cooperstown?

(caveat: after reading the comments in the Neyer article, it occurred to me it was possibly a spoof.  As in, an entire tongue-in-cheek article.  If so, my reading comprehension skills are at fault and I rescind this criticism.)

Opening day is upon us.  Why not put in some quickie predictions on who makes the playoffs this year?

• AL East: New York Yankees
• AL Central: Detroit
• AL West: Los Angeles Angels
• AL Wild Cards: Tampa, Texas

Narrative: I think the Yankees have enough to win the East; they have the same offense and seem to have improved their starting pitching.   Detroit should more or less cruise to the Central title; perhaps Minnesota could scare them for a wh ile but they have almost no quality starting pitching and Mauer and Morneau are not exactly health guarantees.  I think the Angels have bought their way into an AL West title, but wouldn’t be surprised if it came down to the wire.

Wild Cards: I think Texas (or LA) easily qualifies for a wild card, given the number of games both teams will have against their incredibly weaker divisional rivals Seattle and Oakland.  Meanwhile, Tampa seems to be in far better position than anyone else in the AL; they’re going to be tough to beat night to night because of pitching.  Meanwhile Boston seems adrift; they went from a 2011 wild-card shoe-in to an off-season punchline within one series in Baltimore.  They have done almost nothing to improve and have made a few puzzling moves in the off-season.

How about the NL?

• NL East: Philadelphia
• NL Central: Milwaukee
• NL West: San Francisco
• NL Wild Cards: Atlanta, Cincinnati

Narrative: Despite Philadelphia’s injuries on offense, they still have the class starting pitching and don’t seem to be taking that big a step back by depending on Worley to replace Oswalt‘s innings.  They don’t win 100 games, but they’ll eke out a divisional title.  The NL Central may be the most interesting race of any division; who knows how the losses that Milwaukee and St. Louis have absorbed versus the gains of Cincinnati may play out.  For now I’m guessing that all three teams end up in the 86-88 win range, but Milwaukee’s superior pitching and still-good offense win out.  In the west, its hard to imagine San Francisco faltering again, but we’ll see.  I know Arizona won comfortably last year, but they’re putting an awful lot of faith in two relatively weak starters (Saunders and Collmenter).

Wild Cards: I just can’t pick against Atlanta; they mostly have stood pat but they should have been the WC last year.  Based on Washington’s lack of addressing their own offensive needs in the off-season plus all the injuries we’ve had so far this spring, its real tough to suddenly give this team 10 more wins.  I think Cincinnati may sneak into the 2nd wild card ahead of a team like Arizona or Washington by virtue of a few more games against weakened NL central competition (Chicago and Houston).

AL Playoff predictions:

• WC play-in: Tampa beats Texas in the play-in (Matt Moore is untouchable)
• Divisionals: Angels outlast Tampa, Yankees get revenge on Detroit
• ALCS: Los Angeles batters tired New York pitching for an AL Crown

NL Playoff predictions

• WC play-in: Atlanta beats Cincinnati in the play-in
• Divisionals: Philadelphia beats San Francisco in a bunch of 2-1 games, while Milwaukee barely beats Atlanta
• NLCS: Philadelphia outlasts Milwaukee

World Series: the Angels have too much on both sides of the ball, match Philly’s pitching ace-for-ace while providing superior hitting and we have a ton of Rally Monkey/bang sticks in October.