Nationals Arm Race

Maybe its the inverted W that keeps causing Glover shoulder issues? Photo via mlb.com

Hey guys.

So … in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been swamped and have not been posting.  Its a job transition thing; I’ve gotten hit on all fronts and just have had no time to do much of anything outside of work.

At some point this spring, I hope to do a review of the non-roster invites, like I do every year, since we’re almost guaranteed to get an NRI making the roster.

Big news so far in camp, of course, Koda Glover lasting about 5 seconds into spring training before getting shut down due to shoulder soreness.   I’m beginning to think Glover is the latest incarnation of Christian Garcia, a guy with an 80 arm and a 20 ability to stay healthy.

I guess the other big news is non-news; Bryce Harper preemptively telling reporters to not bother asking him about  his pending free agency.  Fair enough; good luck having that directive stick as Harper (the biggest personality in the sport) travels to all the major baseball cities with beat reporters looking to fill inches.  Harper also made an off-hand comment about the Marlins, quickly retorted by Don “get off my lawn” Mattingly, who was subsequently ridiculed for  his over-reaction by none other than frequent Nat-hater Craig Calcaterra over at Hardball talk.

Chalk all that up to “slow news day.”

Glover’s injury quickly led to a 40-man deal for the ageless Joaquin Benoit, which will require a corresponding 40-man move.   I’m wondering if Glover to 60-day D/L won’t be the play, since they were pretty quick to shut him down post-MRI.  Actually, it probably makes more sense to officially move Joe Ross to 60-day D/L first,  since we won’t be seeing him til August  at the earliest.  (Post-publishing update: yup, that’s exactly what they did when the signing became official; moved Ross to 60-day d/l).

Speaking of Benoit, even given his guaranteed signing, I don’t see a pathway to the 25-man roster for him.  As I’ve noted before, the Nats bullpen is pretty full:

• four veterans on guaranteed contracts in Doolittle, Madsen, Knitzler and Kelley.
• three younger guys, all of whom have zero opens left: Grace, Solis and Romero.

Soooo, unless there’s another injury, or a DFA, I’m not quite sure how Benoit makes this team.

In other non-news … the Nats still don’t have much of a 5-th starter competition.  Mike Rizzo was quoted a few weeks ago “naming” A.J. Cole as his 5th starter.  And why not?  Also out of options, Cole makes the team or faces the waiver wire.  So it only makes sense for him to break camp with the team as its 5th starter.

Not much else to report for now.  Can’t wait for games to start so we can have our typical over-reactions to stat lines!

Is Treinen in danger of a DFA or a demotion? Photo via zimbio.com

Yes, its one game.  Yes, it was one game in a regular season 162 games long, with a team playing in an abhorrent division that they’ll probably win by 20 games irrespective of what happens.

But, at the same time, last night’s debilitating 6-5 loss, featuring a 3-run ninth from your opening-day closer Blake Treinen seemed different.  Why?  Because it blew a game against a playoff contender, a team that the Nats very well may face in the first round of the playoffs if the season plays out as expected.  Because this wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill regular season game; this was one of those statement series that this team faces where it can measure up against last year’s champion and determine where they stand in the NL pecking order.  The team s hould be walking away with a dominant series win, having outscored the defending WS champs 22-12.  Instead they concede a split series that ended with a ton of frustration.

The loss last night (per Byron Kerr‘s twitter status) now represents the SIXTH time in 79 games this year that the bullpen has blown a 9th inning lead.   That’s only slightly worse (92.5% conversion rate) than historically  is to be expected (about 95% per Joe Posnanski research), but in the era of the closer … you’d expect better results.

The hitters are already grumbling.  As noted in this weeks’ Tom Boswell chat (and subsequently picked up by Craig Calcaterra in Hardball/NBCSports blog), players are getting pretty frustrated that they are beating teams for 8 innings only to lose it in the 9th.  And with good reason; if you’re facing a Cy Young quality pitcher and are in a position to beat him (well, beat his team that day, even if you couldn’t do jack with Jon Lester himself), then you HAVE TO WIN that game.  You can’t have your starters going 120 pitches and trying to pitch complete games every night because you can’t trust a single member of your bullpen.  Hell, they even got a quality start plus from Joe Ross!  You can’t waste those!  Normally Ross needs the offense to score him 12 runs to win.

I saw the result last night and the first thing I thought was, ” I wonder if they’ll DFA Treinen.”   This is the same team that layered Drew Storen after high profile post-season meltdowns; was Ted Lerner in the crowd last night?  What value does Trienen give the team right now?   He’s got a 1.7whip, an ERA north of 6, and clearly can’t be trusted with the ball unless its a low-leverage situation.  I’m sure it won’t actually happen, thanks to the general health meltdown out there and the clear lack of options on the farm.  But at some point, you have to think out side the box.

They were thinking outside the box moving Erick Fedde to the pen; guess what?  Its time.  I’d also start thinking about other AAA starters out of the pen while the two closer-retreads they’ve just signed (Francisco Rodriguez and Kevin Jepsen get fitted for uniforms and throw a few innings in AAA).   Call up guys from AA straight and DFA the deadweight that you know you don’t trust that’s sitting in AAA . You hate trading from a position of weakness, but its time to start working the phones and cashing in assets.

I’ve preached patience for this bullpen, and I just ran out of it.

ps: the larger news on the night of course is the Trea Turner injury.  That’s a bad piece of luck … but its also why we got back Stephen Drew.  My initial thoughts on Turner’s hit are these: its not season ending, we have a 9.5 game lead in a division were nobody else is really even trying, we’ll be fine.   He’ll be back for September when it counts.  Fix the bullpen.

Griffey is a shoe-in for 2016 class; who else might be affected? Photo via freeteam.com

(Editor note: we’ll take a quick break from the minor league reviews and arguing about why the Nats are trying to fill a 5th starter spot instead of one of their several obvious needs for that classic Late December task: arguing about the Hall of Fame.  I wrote most of this post much earlier this summer/fall, waiting for the “hall of fame” blogger season to post it.  Now’s as good of a time as any).

In the middle of the 2015 post-season, an interesting tidbit got reported by NBCSports’ Craig Calcaterra: The Hall of Fame BBWAA electorate has been reduced by a whopping 20% thanks to the new voter eligibility rules announced back in July 2015.

20% of voters!  That’s a huge number.  I thought the rules, when they were first announced, would have a negligible effect on things and would be a paper tiger.  But losing 20% of the voters will have a profound effect on the ballots going forward.  I agree with Calcaterra in characterizing these types of voters as generally being out of touch, industry-has-passed-them-by, believe everything they read from Murray Chass types who have directly led to the ballot congestion and the ridiculous voting patterns we’ve seen lately.  No word yet on whether the category of writers purged also includes those who no longer cover the sport actively (the most egregious example being the 3 voters who write for www.golferswest.com) who not only kept their votes but felt the need to pontificate about the state of the sport!).

Early returns are promising, by the way.  The BBHOF tracker website has taken the lead in collecting all published ballots and they’re tracked directly in this Google xls.  As of the time of this writing, they have about 20% of the ballots in the tracker spreadsheet and borderline candidates like Piazza, Raines and Bagwell are all trending above the 75% needed.  Griffey is at a perfect 100% and still looks like a good bet to beat Tom Seaver‘s all time record.  That is until some curmudgeons decide they like Seaver more than Griffey and send in blank ballots or some dumb-ass thing.

Key Dates in 2016 HoF class voting:

• 11/9/15: ballot officially released, though we’ve known for years who’s actually on it thanks to baseball-reference.com.
• 12/21/15: BBWAA ballots due back to Cooperstown for counting
• 1/6/16: Class of 2016 announced, as well as 10,000 internet blogger posts on the topic.
• 7/24/16: Official induction ceremony for the Class of 2016 in Cooperstown, NY

Anyway.  Lets look at the 2016 Ballot (hey, its never too early to do Hall of Fame vote analysis) and guess how things may go for the candidates, now that 20% of dead-weight is gone.

• Ken Griffey Jr: if anything, his chances of breaking Tom Seaver‘s vote % record may rise thanks to the elimination of a bunch of curmudgeons who have been witholding votes inexplicably to prevent there ever being a unanimous inductee.  Easily gets elected in 2016.
• Trevor Hoffman: might be hurt by more new-age voters who realize how minimal the impact of a closer is, no matter how good (Hoffman had just a 28.4 career bWAR, less than Mike Trout had accumulated by the end of his third full season, by way of comparison).

There’s not really anyone else new to the 2016 class worth mentioning; I could see Jim Edmonds getting 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot but nobody else getting much more than home-town beat writer sympathy votes.  This isn’t an indictment of Edmonds at all; there’s just too many good players on the ballot (our lament every year) and I think he’s a worthy candidate (some of the Jay Jaffe JAWS analysis on Edmonds is pretty telling; for a period of 10 years during his peak he trailed only Griffey and Bonds in terms of WAR).

How about the hold overs?  I think there’s good news for some guys:

• Mike Piazza/Jeff Bagwell: two “PED-suspicion” guys who have never had any actual concrete proof against them probably now get in thanks to the elimination of a class of voters who probably believed everything they read in the anonymous-sourced NYTimes articles from 10 years ago.  Bagwell has further to go and may not get to 75%, but Piazza should.
• Tim Raines: the more older/non sabremetric appreciating voters that go mean the higher percentage of votes Raines will get from more modern voters who realize just how valuable he was.  Like Bagwell, he has further to go and may not get to 75% this time, but between 2016 and 2017 he should get in.
• Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds: I can see their vote totals rise from the 35% they’ve  been getting into the 50% range, still not enough to get enshrinement.  Still too many wounds and not enough voters who can overcome their disdain for what happened.
• Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa: same story as Clemens/Bonds, except whack off another 20% of votes.
• Curt Schilling/Mike Mussina: Hard to see their vote totals changing much; older voters were probably giving Schilling too much credit for the bloody sock game but new voters havn’t supported him as much as expected (and he’s doing himself no favors with his continued idiotic political twitter posts).  Mussina just doens’t seem like the kind of pitcher that gets elected to the Hall thanks to a long career without specific accolades and being a known pr*ck to the media.

Everyone else held over from the 2015 ballot not already mentioned (Smith, Martinez, Trammell, Kent, McGriff, Walker, Sheffield, Garciaparra) each have specific issues that likely prevent any of them from getting much above the vote totals they’ve already gotten and probably won’t be helped much by the purge of the electorate.  I would vote for some of these guys (namely Martinez and Trammell) but understand why others don’t.

This is as close to a prediction piece as we’ll do for the Hall of Fame 2016 ballot (there’s way too many of them already), but my guess is that we’ll be seeing just Griffey and Piazza in Cooperstown in July 2016, with Bagwell, Raines and perhaps Hoffman right on the cusp to join them in 2017 (where the incoming class has some pretty serious PED-related issues that should be fascinating to watch play out; more on that in a year’s time).

Here’s some similar articles for your Hall of Fame perusal:

• Jay Jaffe‘s JAWS analysis for the 2016 ballot.
• Steve Aschburner at The Federalist similar analysis to above.
• Some classic Craig Calcaterra ranting at the audacity of a stripped HoFame voter whining about his loss of vote.
• The electorate voted down an option to increase the ballot size; why??
• The same Calcaterra announcing he’s going to stop mocking individual ballots.  Good; it was getting tiresome.  Yes we know you have an opinion.  I do too.

Hamilton’s team has hung him out to dry. Photo via theclassical.org

Today is a tale of two organizations.  I’d rather talk about that than the opening series loss to the pitiful Mets, featuring a 6 run meltdown from Stephen Strasburg today.

1. Good.  San Diego Padres

Read this piece this week on For the Win (USA Today’s sports blog), linking to a story by Steve Bisheff of the OC Register in SoCal.

Worth a read.  The Padres have re-signed a former minor league prospect every year since 1996 to a contract to give him a small stipend and access to health care after he had a debilitating heart attack on the field.

Its nice to read stories like this.

2. Bad.  The Los Angeles Angels

As has been well reported by now, Angels slugger and contract disaster Josh Hamilton had a drug relapse over the off-season and self-reported himself to the league.  While negotiations were underway to determine what, if any, penalties were to be done, someone leaked pretty much all the details of the situation, drastically violating the confidentiality of the Joint Drug Agreement and hanging Hamilton out to dry.  Which happens; there’s plenty of players who have been labeled “PED users” by virtue of leaked reports of supposedly sealed and/or anonymous testing.  It can be assumed but not proven that the leak came within the Angels organization, based on who reported it (team beat reporters) and who their sources generally are (team officials).

Eventually it was determined that Hamilton would suffer no consequences, to which the Angels president John Carpino was quoted, “It defies logic that Josh’s reported behavior is not a violation of his current program.”   The GM Jerry Dipoto also issued a rather snippy press release, going out of his way to degrade the player.

Wow.  Way to stick up for your player, guys.  I agree with Craig Calcaterra whole heartedly here; this comment was petty, graceless, and completely unnecessary.  And I also agree with his opinion (stated here), that MLB’s subsequent decision not to investigate the leaks is just as abhorrent.  Hamilton has a past; he has an addiction, just like millions of Americans.  He struggles with it, and sometimes slips.  So do we all.  There’s probably  not one person reading who wasn’t once “addicted” to something or another, or who had a bad habit they struggled to break, who cannot relate to his issues.  Nicotine, Alcohol, high-fat foods, whatever.  To show so little sympathy is kind of tough to swallow.

For  years, the union held out against drug testing, in large part because of *exactly* what has continually happened since.  Constant leaks from people (either in the MLB or with teams) who have axes to grind and who give anonymous quotes to reporters, who then dutifully report salacious details with no provable accusations that end up destroying careers (see players such as David Ortiz, Jeff Bagwell and the “back-acned” Mike Piazza for more examples).  This Hamilton example is just one more example.  You can’t put the genie back in the bottle either.

No more death-defying defections for cubans like Yasiel Puig. photo mlb.com

With the sudden and surprising announcement that president Barack Obama plans to “normalize relationships” with Cuba on 12/17/14, one cannot help but wonder how this move will affect the market for Cuban baseball players.

Here’s a smattering of links to post-announcement baseball industry impact analysis:

• WP’s Adam Kilgore addressed the issue in the 12/18/14 paper, summarizing some possible changes in the lucrative market for high-end Cuban players.
• ESPN’s David Schoenfield also wrote about the issue upon the announcement.
• Buster Olney posted his analysis here.  All these stories have good analysis and ask the same questions discussed here.
• MLBTradeRumors does a good job linking to a bunch more.
• Heck, even the MLB prospect guys got into the fun, with MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez posting about the 5 best Cuban amateurs to watch for (though they all seem to be post-defection/pre-residency establishment).

If you read any of these links, read Olney’s.  Its ESPN insider only, but he extensively quotes one Joe Kehoskie, who has worked as a player agent within Cuba for years.  Kehoskie states some important points, namely and most importantly, the US-Cuba embargo is NOT what was preventing Cuban players from playing in America; it was always the Cuban government.  Proof?  Cuba does not have an embargo against it with any other country with a large organized league (i.e., Japan, Korea, Mexico, Europe, any of the winter league countries, etc) yet their players were barred from playing even in them until just recently.  The Cuban government took these steps just recently to enable its players to play elsewhere; in Sept 2013 Cuban players were allowed to play in foreign leagues, which has subsequently led to a number of additional defections (and rising player contracts) here in the states.  But as Kehoski points out, there’s still huge hurdles to foreign ownership of property in Cuba (preventing the immediate building of academies by MLB teams for example), and it is worth saying that the country is still a communist dictatorship, with huge amounts of government control over the activities of its people.

Lets dream a bit though, and imagine that the Cuban government relents and releases the market for baseball players.  Immediate questions from a baseball perspective include:

• Can MLB scouts immediately (and freely) travel to Cuba to scout?  It seems so: the Obama press release talked about immediate easing of travel restrictions and stated limits on import/exports (they had to answer multiple questions about bringing back cigars in the press conference 🙂 )
• Will the Cuban league negotiate a posting system similar to what MLB has with the Asian leagues?
• Or, will MLB teams set up their own academies similarly to what they do in the Dominican Republic?

MLB teams will want the academy route clearly; it won’t take but a few million dollars of infrastructure to setup teams and dormitories, and 16-yr olds could be signed for a few thousand dollars outside of harsh international FA spending limits much as they are in the DR.  But the Cuban government may want to do a posting system to help protect its local leagues and to earn much-needed money.   Not to mention the fact that Cuban culture values education and they’d likely be aghast if kids started dropping out of conventional school in their mid teens to enroll in baseball-only academies for a shot at a baseball lottery ticket.  Also, can you imagine billionaire owners negotiating with the cronies of the communist Cuban sports bureaus looking to hoard cash on the backs of their penniless players?

A huge benefit that could start immediately?  The possible return of the Cuban winter league, which used to be the clear preeminent winter league, drawing future hall of famers to the island for a winter vacation.  Now, Havana in the 50s isn’t what it is today of course … but if the Cuban government relents to foreign investment, there’s no reason for Cuba not to turn into another tourist-heavy island nation in the same way that other Caribbean countries operate.

One last thing: I’ve always taken an interest in the World Baseball Classic, and one of the things I’ve always wondered is what a united Cuban team could look like.  In the wake of the 2013 event, I wrote about what such a “politics-free” team could look like.  And now, two years and a number of high-profile defections later, I think a Cuban team could be even better.  Will we get to see a united team in the next version?   Hopefully so; the next WBC isn’t until 2017, by which time we’ll hopefully have a lot more clarity.   If you look at the 2013 version of the unified Cuban team, It lists Jose Abreu as a sub; now we know he’d be the marquee hitter in such a lineup next to Yoenis Cespedes.  And more players are coming.  In fact, you may put a unified cuban team as the 2nd or 3rd favorite in the WBC (behind the DR and USA).

Here’s a quick proffer on what a unified Cuban all-star team could look like right now.  Using the 2013 team as a starter and adding in recent defectees:

• C: Yasmani Grandal
• 1B: Jose Abreu
• 2B: Yunel Escobar
• 3B: Yonder Alonso
• SS: Yoan Moncada (backed up by Alexei Ramirez)
• LF: Yoenis Cespedes
• CF: Yasiel Puig
  
• RF: Yasmani Tomas
• Starters: Jose Fernandez, Odrisamer Despaigne, Miguel Gonzalez
  (Gio Gonzalez was born in Cuba, but has already played for the US, so we eliminate him from consideration).
• Relievers: Aroldis Chapman

That’s quite a good squad to start with, even without looking at the lesser Cuban players and/or the guys in the pipeline.

Post publishing link collection: Sports on Earth’s Phil Rogers on the future of the Cuban National team: he basically does a more researched and thoughtful version of the lineup above.  Nathaniel Grow of Fangraphs does his own version of this post in general.   Chris Moran of Beyond the box Score also does a version of this post.  Craig Calcaterra pipes in too.  Thom Loverro puts up his 2 cents.  BusinessInsider quotes super-agent Ron Shapiro and his “sea of questions” regarding baseball players.

Jose Fernandez was (arguably) the biggest name to go down to TJ surgery in 2014. Photo via thestar.com

When we hit 20 MLB pitchers going under the knife for blown Ulnar Collateral Ligaments (UCL) on the 2014 season, I posted on possible reasons for the epidemic.  By the time the season was over, more than 90 players in professional baseball (and a handful of marquee amateurs, including two first round picks and our own) had gone under the knife for blown UCLs/Tommy John surgery.  2014 was the year of the elbow ligament, no question, in terms of volume and awareness.

This post lists all the major league pitchers who had the surgery this year, with links to the announcements as they happened, along with stills of the pitchers’ mechanics to do a quickie thumb nail analysis of mechanics and whether there’s a relationship to the injury. At the bottom i’ve captured any significant news related to the surgery, MLB being proactive in preventing the injuries, and other TJ news.

First, here’s the complete Tommy John fall-out for the year for major league arms.  According to the great injury tracking links below, no less than 91 players in all levels of pro baseball had the surgery in calendar year 2014, of which 29 were MLB-experienced pitchers.

(data from baseballheatmaps.com, which has detailed Disabled List data).

• Jonny Venters, recovering from his 2nd TJ surgery, re-tore the ligament and is going for his THIRD.
• Jeremy Hefner, already on the shelf from a TJ surgery *last* year, suffered a big set-back and may have to have a 2nd procedure (announced 8/11/14)
• Tyler Skaggs was diagnosed on 8/10/14 with needing the surgery.
• Nate Jones: diagnosed 7/31/14.
• Tyler Chatwood: diagnosed 7/17/14
• Masahiro Tanaka, diagnosed with torn UCL 7/10/14; a huge blow, nearly as big of an announcement as Jose Fernandez’ if he has to get TJ surgery.  No announcement yet though that he’s having the surgery.  But, as of 8/5/14 he’s re-habbing and experiencing no pain while throwing, and eventually was able to avoid the surgery.  For now.
• Bronson Arroyo diagnosed 7/8/14, a surprise considering his durability and soft-tossing nature.
• Trevor Bell, diagnosed 4/23/14 but finally getting the surgery 7/16/14.
• (… we go more than a month without another diagnosis after getting them nearly daily in April and May.  Odd).
• Sean Burnett: diagnosed 5/28/14 (would be his 2nd)
• Chris Withrow: diagnosed 5/29/14 (though technically he’d been optioned to AAA; not sure if this should count as a MLBer)
• Martin Perez: diagnosed 5/15/14
• Jose Cisnero: diagnosed 5/14/14.
• Jose Fernandez: diagnosed 5/13/14.  Wow, biggest name to fall yet.
• AJ Griffin: getting the surgery 4/27/14
• Pedro Figueroa: diagnosed 4/24/14 (his 2nd, first in 2010)
• Ivan Nova: diagnosed 4/25/14
• Josh Johnson: diagnosed/announced 4/23/14, surgery 4/24/14.  His 2nd (first in 2007).
• Matt Moore: surgery 4/22/14
• Cory Gearrin: diagnosed 4/8/14
• Bobby Parnell: diagnosed 4/2/14
• Erik Davis: diagnosed 4/2/14
• David Hernandez: diagnosed 3/31/14
• Peter Moylan: diagnosed 3/22/14 (his 2nd)
• Bruce Rondon: diagnosed 3/21/14
• Patrick Corbin: diagnosed 3/17/14
• Jarrod Parker: diagnosed 3/17/14. (his 2nd)
• Brandon Beachy: diagnosed 3/17/14 (his 2nd)
• Kris Medlen: diagnosed 3/9/14. (his 2nd)
• Luke Hochevar: announced 3/7/14
• Cory Luebke: surgery in 2/4/14 (his 2nd)

10 of these 29 pitchers are getting the surgery for the 2nd time.  Wow.

Here’s links to other notable non-MLB pitchers who have gotten the surgery as well in 2014:

• Jamison Taillon: the Pirates #1 pitching prospect and one of the best pitching prospects in the game.  Diagnosed 4/6/14, surgery 4/9/14.
• Danny Rosenbaum: Nats AAA starter and long-time farmhand.   Surgery 5/8/14.  Tough for Rosenbaum because he’s a MLFA this coming off-season, now facing a very uncertain future.
• Miguel Sano: one of the best prospects in the minors, had the surgery 3/12/14.  He’s not a pitcher, and he initially injured his arm playing in the Dominican Winter League, but it still costs Minnesota one of its best prospects.
• Jeff Hoffman, ECU’s right handed starter and consensus top 5 pick in the 2014 draft, hurt his arm and was diagnosed on 5/8/14.  He dropped 5 places from his likely drafting spot by the Cubs at #4, which cost him about $X in slot dollars.   We talked about whether the Nats (picking at #18) were a likely suitor for him at the time of the injury in early May.
• Erick Fedde, UNLV’s friday starter and projected mid-1st round pick, was diagnosed two days after Hoffman on 5/10/14.  He dropped perhaps 8 places from his estimated drafting spot of mid 1st round and was picked by Washington.  His injury didn’t really cost him much in slot money thanks to the Nats paying over-slot.
• Our own Matthew Purke, diagnosed and set for TJ surgery 5/29/14 after really struggling out of the gate this year for Harrisburg.   Purke may face an options crunch by the time he’s done re-habbing, thanks to his MLB deal signed on draft-day.  (Update: the Nats never let him get there, releasing him on 11/14/14).
• Chad Billingsley having flexor tendon surgery while trying to recover from his 2013 TJ surgery.    This isn’t counted as a TJ, but is noteworthy.
• Not a pitcher, but key Orioles player Matt Wieters had to have TJ surgery on 6/18/14.
• Matt Cain dodged a bullet by just being diagnosed with elbow chips, but still had season-ending elbow surgery on 8/5/14.
• Padres uber-prospect and 2012 first rounder Max Fried went under the knife in mid-august.
• Yu Darvish didn’t fall victim to the TJ surgery, but an elbow issue is shutting him down in late August, just the latest nail in the coffin of the Rangers’ season.
• Jonathan Mayo discussion on elbow surgeries and prospects from Mid-Late August.

Here’s quickie images of every MLB starter diagnosed this year as they land to make a quick judgement about their mechanics:

Quick and Dirty Mechanics analysis (images in same order as list of pitchers above, which is chronological in order of diagnosis in 2014):

• Inverted W: Hefner, Skaggs, Withrow, Griffin, Nova, Gearrin, Beachy, Hochevar
• Sideways M: Ventors, Chatwood, Bell, Burnett, Fernandez, Johnson, Davis, Moylan, Rondon, Parker, Medlen
• Inverted L: Jones, Tanaka, Arroyo, Perez, Cisnero, Figueroa, Moore, Parnell, Hernandez, Corbin, Luebke

Conclusions? None.  They’re all over the road.  TJ injuries this year happened to those thought to have “dangerous” mechanics and clean mechanics.  TJ injuries happened to the league’s harder throwers (Rondon, Ventors, Fernandez) and its softest throwers (Medlen and Arroyo, both of whom are usually at the absolute bottom of the league in terms of fastball velocity).  Starters and relievers, no discernable pattern.

I think all you can conclude is this: if you throw a lot of innings, you’re more prone to injury.  I know, ground breaking analysis.

Other notable/interesting links I’ve collected on the topic over the length of the season:

• Yahoo’s Tim Brown interviewed Zack Greinke (published 5/15/14)who says he made a conscious decision to throw fewer sliders, noting that he could really feel it in his elbow after starts where he threw too many.  This tends to support the notion that sliders make a difference.
• Jerry Crasnick interviewed commissioner Bud Selig on 5/15/14 and Selig said he’s “concerned.”  Great!  On a scale of “Resolve Oakland/San Jose territorial rights” concerned to “Resolve MASN dispute” concerned, I wonder where he falls?  Maybe he’ll form a blue-ribbon committee that can meet for several years without arriving at any solutions.
• Stephania Bell‘s articles on the spate of TJ injuries: from April and again in May.
• Nate Silver‘s new blog 538 chimes in in mid-may.
• Neil Weinberg from Peter Gammons‘ website posts his own theory on 5/16/14 that is basically related to the rise in youth/showcase events.
• Shawn Anderson from the blog HallofVeryGood.com posts his theory (overuse).
• An older link to Will Carrol from July 2013 talking about the surgery, how its done, who’s had it and some other great stuff.
• The American Sports Medicine Institute (led by Dr. James Andrews) released a statement on 5/28/14 on the issue of Tommy John surgeries (as pointed out by David Schoenfield and/or Craig Calcaterra in late may and/or Jerry Crasnick on the same day).  Their basic point: don’t throw with max effort.
• Dr. James Andrews announced that he’s releasing an app to help keep pitchers healthy.   Per screen shots, it will be relatively simple and will have pitch counts, age and rest days calculate a max number of pitchers that a player can throw today.
• An interesting analysis of Kansas City’s Yordano Ventura after he was diagnosed with a non-UCL related elbow injury in May.
  
• Thoughtful piece from Dirk Hayhurst about the quest for velocity and the value of soft-throwers like Mark Buehrle.
• Danny Knobler special piece to the BleacherReport in June 2014 discussing “child abuse” of kids over-throwing, throwing too much, too hard, too soon.
• A sleeve has been announced that may help prevent TJ injuries (its called the Motus Pitcher Sleeve).  Dirk Hayhurst subsequently did some research and interviews about the sleeve and offers some thoughts.
• CBS’s Jon Heyman breaks the news that #1 overall pick Brady Aiken may have an “elbow ligament issue,” thus holding up the signing.  Wow.  As we all know, this turned into a big-time stalemate, the non-signing of Aiken (which cascaded down and cost the Astros their 5th round pick too), possible grievances, possible lawsuits, all sorts of NCAA eligibility concerns, and a whole big black-mark for the Astros organization.  All over $1.5M.  Remember; this is the same team that gave $30M last off-season to 5th starter Scott Feldman.
• There was a two hour special on the injury on MLB Radio Networks on 7/17/14 that I hope they replay or transcribe to the internet.
• Bud Selig still awaits the Tommy John study in Mid July 2014.  If its anything like his other blue-ribbon panels, he’ll be waiting a long time.
• Discussion about youths with UCL/TJ injuries in USA Today on 7/23/14.
• Study from USA Today on how prep pitchers are avoiding TJ.
• MLB unveils “Pitch Smart” guide in Mid November to help youth’s understand workloads.  Also discussed by Jeff Passan.

Hope you’ve found this trove of TJ links as interesting as I have.

The NCAA always pegs this needle.

I started this post as a rant about the NCAA … but now I’m not sure who i’m more disgusted by, them or the Phillies organization for what was divulged today.

An interesting story popped up today; Oregon State Friday starter Ben Wetzler has been suspended by his school while the NCAA investigates his utilization of an “agent” while negotiating with the Philadelphia Phillies last summer.  The Phillies drafted him in the 5th round (when his name was apparently “Ben Holmes”) after he went 10-1 with a 2.25 ERA for Oregon State last year but did not sign.

The interesting part?  The NCAA received this “tip” from none other than the Phillies organization.

CollegeBaseballDaily had the tip off, leading to this story from Oregonlive.com.  BaseballAmerica’s Aaron Fitt has tweeted about it extensively and has some head-shaking points as cut-n-pasted here from Fitt’s twitter feed.  However it was the reaction from MLBDraftInsider’s Chris Crawford (and the post on NBCHardballTalk by Craig Calcaterra) that I agree with here: Crawford basically thinks the Phillies did this kid a huge disservice for no other apparent reason than revenge or spite.  And I completely agree with Crawford’s point that whoever the Phillies draft this year should tread incredibly carefully when it comes to negotiations, because the organization really doesn’t look good here.

The story is now getting legs, and I personally hope the vitriol towards the Phillies management group continues.  Ruben Amaro should be ashamed.  Read the Philly.com link; apparently they Phillies also did this with their 6th round pick from last year, who also refused to sign.  What the hell??   Why would a team worth hundreds of millions of dollars go out of its way to try to wreck the seasons of a couple of kids??

I post this story for another reason besides the Philadelphia organization looking really immature and petty, and its to complain about the NCAA.  I really can’t stand the continuing hypocrisyof the NCAA and all its examples of two-faced enforcement of rules, and this situation just highlights one more example of why I think the organization paints too broad a brush stroke on an issue related to amateurism.   Crawford points it out plainly; *every* single kid who gets drafted and who still has eligibilty left uses some sort of “agent” or “advisor” in order to negotiate.  They have to; you’re talking about a situation worth potentially millions of dollars with one side (the MLB teams) who enjoys anti-trust and anti-competitive advantages over any non-union player who wants to play professional baseball and who clearly has gone out of their way over the years to drive down amateur bonuses in order to save comparative pennies on the dollar.

But the big bad NCAA says that “hiring an agent” is instant grounds for nullification of eligibility for NCAA sanctioned athletics.

See the problem these kids face here?

Does the NCAA really expect a 20-yr old kid (hell, how about a 17-yr old HS grad?) to go stare down a career baseball executive/general manager 3 times his age in order to negotiate for his best interests??  Does anyone think that would lead to fair market values being granted to these kids?

I think some sort of “negotiating window” needs to be put into play here, so that situations like this don’t happen again.  If you’re a kid with college eligibility left and you’re drafted by a team (no matter what the sport), there should be an official time period where you can receive professional advice while negotiating a potential contract.  These 30-day or 60-day contracts end with either a pro contract or a kid going back to school.   I really don’t see the down side of a situation like this, nor why the NCAA would have any issue with it.  It would allow fair representation of a player’s interests without running into the situation that is occuring here with Wetzler.

I think it points to a larger issue that keeps popping up with regard to NCAA rules; the continuing criticism of just how non-sensical the rules are for athletes on “scholarship.”  When I was in college, I had a job.  I could earn some spending money.  But if you’re an athlete on scholarship …whoops can’t do that.  If I was presented with a multi million dollar job opportunity after my junior year in college and I was just a regular kid, absolutely I could hire a lawyer on contingency to help negotiate; if the contract fell through was I banned from returning to school?  Nope.  So why is this Wetzler kid being banned from playing baseball?

What is the NCAA *really* trying to protect here?  Do they really think that the college baseball game (which is, what, the 4th or 5th most important college sport in this country?) is going to undergo some drastic, life altering change for the worse because some kid decided to get some professional advice while negotiating a future contract??  I just don’t get it.

(Note: there is some precident here; Andy Oliver was suspended by the NCAA based on an allegation by a former agent in 2008, sued and won $750k.  That didn’t stop the NCAA’s tactics in this matter … clearly a larger punitive award was needed.   A year later James Paxton was banished from school over this exact same issue and had to play independent ball instead of completing his senior season.   This clearly cost Paxton; he went from being a 1st round pick to a 4th rounder; I’m not sure if he sued or not.  This situation needs to be resolved).

Editor Update: months later on 5/30/14, Phillies scouting director Marti Wolver came out with an amazingly lame “defense” of his actions.   Law has noted that (per his discussions with people in the industry) little has come of the expected backlash against the Phillies organization.  But, we haven’t had the draft yet.

Sabathia remains the best chance for another 300-game winner .. Photo wiki/flickr chris.ptacek

Welcome to the latest installment of  the “Will we ever see another 300-game winner” post.

(Aside; yes I know the limitations of the “win” statistic.  However, nobody looks at a 20-game winner on the season or a 300-game winner for his career and excuses it as a statistical aberration; the pitcher win will continue to be important to players and in the lexicon of the game for years to come, despite Brian Terry‘s #killthewin campaigns).

Of the 24 pitchers in the game’s history to have reached the 300-game plateau, 4 of them have done it in the last decade (they being Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine).  However, there exists a distinct belief in the game that we may not see another 300-game winner for some time, thanks to pitch count obsessions, innings limits, 5-man rotations, NL small-ball managing, match-up relievers and generally a huge rise in bullpen usage over the last 20 years.

In the past year, I’ve collected some topical reading related to this post:

• Rob Neyer posted about Felix Hernandez upon his reaching 100 wins in April 2013.
• Jay Jaffe asked whether we’ll even get 200-game winners going forward in May 2013.
• Jeff Passan tacked this same topic in May 2013 and mentioned some names that we now know are definite longshots thanks to injury.
• Craig Calcaterra predictably whined about people’s obsession with wins when Sabathia hit 200 career wins in July 2013.
• Here’s a fun graphics-intensive post at HighHeatStats about 200 and 300 game winners from July 2013.
• Lastly, here’s an analysis of CC Sabathia‘s decline in 2013 from Alex Keinholz on BeyondtheBoxScore from July 2013

When we first broached this topic (in April 2009), Sabathia was still the best bet (outside of Randy Johnson, who sat at 296 before the 2009 season began), but it didn’t look that good for anyone else to reach the plateau, and a couple of the names we guessed as having an outside shot (Ervin Santana and Scott Kazmir) seem like ridiculous choices now.  When we most recently broached this topic (at the end of the 2012 season), we explained some statistical models we and others were using to try to predict who may have the next best shot at reaching the mark.  We concluded that Sabathia and Hernandez were both pretty good guesses at the time to reach the plateau.

How are things looking now?

I maintain a spreadsheet (uploaded to google and/or available via the links to the right of this page) that ranks candidates using a couple of formulas inspired by Jay Jaffe (see 2012’s post for the full thought process behind them).  Basically Jaffe’s prediction models assume that the pitcher can win X games per year after a set age (in Jaffe’s case, his simple formula assumes pitchers win 15 games/year until their age 42 season, a relatively optimistic projection and hence why he self-titles it using the words “blindingly optimistic”).  I’ve used a couple other methods to rank pitchers (calculating average number of wins past the age of 18 or 23, but since some guys get drafted out of HS and debut at 20 or 21 these projections end up looking ridiculous), in order to find candididates to put into the discussion.  I also don’t really even consider a guy until he gets to 50 career wins, so there’s no wild speculation about someone like Shelby Miller (15 wins in his age 22 season) or Jose Fernandez (12 wins in his age 20 season).

So, without further ado, here’s a list of starters right now who are in the conversation of possibly reaching 300 wins in their career and my % chance opinion of getting there.

Thoughts per starter:

• CC Sabathia remains the pitcher with the best chance of reaching 300 wins, but i’ve downgraded his probability from last year’s 90% to just 75% right now.  Why?  Well read no further than the link about his 2013 decline, where his FB velocity dropped, his ERA rose and he posted a sub 100 ERA+ value for the first time in his career.  He still won 14 games, but his win totals have declined four years in a row.   On the plus side, he’s a workhorse pitching for a team that historically has a great offense, which enables him to get wins despite an inflated ERA (he had 4 or more runs of support in 20 of his 32 starts in 2013 … Stephen Strasburg just started crying).   It still seems entirely plausible he can average at least 10-12 wins for the next 7 seasons and hit the milestone before hanging them up.
• Clayton Kershaw improves his probability of hitting the plateau from last year to this year based on two factors: First, he has clearly stepped up and is now the pre-eminent starter in the game and seems set to continue to post 16-20 win seasons for the extended future.  Secondly, the Dodgers now spend money like no other, ensuring a winning team that gets Kershaw victories even if he’s not pitching his best.  He was “only” 16-9 in 2013; I would expect him to put up more wins each season in the next few years, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him with 160 career wins before he’s 30.
• Felix Hernandez‘s chances have plummetted; going from 75% last year to just 10%.  Why such a precipitous drop?  Two factors; first he took a noted step back in FB velocity this year, to the point where pundits were questioning his arm strength.  Secondly, he signed a massive deal to stay in Seattle … and Seattle right now is not a winner.  It has a completely dysfunctional ownership and management group and seemingly has no idea how to put together a baseball team.  They’re competing in a division of teams with better management willing to spend more money, and these factors are going to continue to have Hernandez put up the 13-14 win seasons he has been doing for the last four years.  He’s already 27: if he’s doesn’t have back to back 20 win seasons his chances are kaput.
• Justin Verlander, like Hernandez and Sabathia, also had a curious drop in performance in 2013, leading me to drop his 300-game chances from one in three to one in ten.  At age 30 he has logged just 137 wins and has gone from 24 to 17 to 13 in the last three seasons.  If he can right the ship and get back to the 18-20 game win plateau, he can get his 300-game mojo back, but at age 30 he’s less than halfway there, so chances are looking pretty slim.
• Madison Bumgarner appears here mostly because of his advanced win totals at such a young age; he already has 49 career wins before his 24th birthday.  He’s averaging 14 wins a season so far, and with a 14 win average in every season between now and his age 40 year he’d hit his mark.  But I have his chances right now at only 5%; its just too early to really tell if Bumgerner will have the endurance and continued success to get there.  Plus, is Bumgarner an elite starter or more in the mold of a Mark Buehrle (i.e., a durable lefty who grinds out 13-14 win seasons for a decade)?
• Trevor Cahill is in nearly the same boat as Bumgarner, except that I don’t think he’s quite as good.  In fact, Cahill seems like he’s bound for Mark Buehrle territory (see below); an innings eating guy who is always right around the 13-12 mark each season.  If he does this for the next 15 years, he may get close.  I give him a slight chance.
• Zack Greinke has gone from not even being considered to having a 5% chance.  Why?  Well he’s signed a huge long term deal with a very good team AND he now pitches in both the NL and in a pitcher’s park.   In 2013 he put up a very quiet 15-4 record and I think with his stuff and his health he could put up multiple 16-18 win seasons.  That’d get him to the mid 200s by the time he’s nearing 40 … maybe enough to have him go for it while pitching into his early 40s.  Or maybe not; by the time he’s 40 he’ll likely have nearly $250M in career earnings and may just buy a ranch somewhere.
• Mark Buehrle‘s career 162 game average W/L record (14-11) is identical to Bumgarner’s.  In his last 5 season’s he’s won 13 games four times and 12 games once.  I have given him a 1% chance of hitting 300 on the off-chance that he pitches well into his mid 40s, continues to put up 4th starter figures and finishes with a career record of something like 302-285.  He doesn’t miss many starts, so perhaps he’s that durable.
• The last three guys mentioned (Rick Porcello, Yovani Gallardo and Matt Cain) are all given 0% chances at this point but are listed thanks to their advanced win totals by their mid 20s.  Cain’s sudden drop off in 2013 (a common theme in this list) has seemingly cost him any shot at reaching 300 wins despite his normal sturdiness.  Gallardo had a 10% chance last year and drops to zero thanks to my having almost no confidence that he is a good enough pitcher to accumulate enough wins going forward.  And Porcello remains essentially a 5th starter who just happened to matriculate to the majors at the tender age of 20.  I can see him having a career similar to Buehrle’s; long tenures of near .500 record. In fact, ironically Porcello’s 162-game average W/L record is identical (14-11) to Buehrle’s … which is also identical to Bumgarner and very close to Cahill’s.  I think there’s something clearly “accumulator” in nature to all these guys.

What has happened to some of the candidates from last year not mentioned yet?

• Roy Halladay went from a near Cy Young season in 2011 to retirement in just two short seasons.  Shoulder injuries are a killer.  He retires with 203 wins.
• Chad Billingsley lost nearly the entire 2013 season to injury, scuttling what dim chances he had.  He’s now not even guaranteed a spot in LA’s high powered rotation.
• A bunch of veterans who already had little chance (but were mentioned anyways) have now retired: Jamie Moyer, Livan Hernandez, Andy Pettitte, and Kevin Millwood.
• Tim Hudson is an interesting case; he sits at 205 wins, lost a chunk of last season to injury but signed on in a pitcher’s park in SF.   He’s gotten 17,16 and 16 wins the last three seasons in his mid 30s; can he just continue to get 16-17 win seasons and suddenly be looking at 300 wins by the time he’s 42?  Maybe, but he’s going to have to be good these next two seasons.

Thoughts?  Do you care about 300 winners like I do, or is it just an anachronism of baseball history that will go the way of 300 strikeouts, 30-wins and hitting .400?

John Feinstein, a guy whose opinions on things I used to read and look forward to, completely lost my respect with his ridiculous Sept 25th column where he argues, somehow, without anything in the way of proof, that the 2012 Stephen Strasburg shutdown affected the 2013 team.  He lost most of my respect last year with a similarly ridiculous article (discussed further on) but this one took the cake.

This column was so bad that the mild-mannered Adam Kilgore felt the need to post a rebuttal, to his own Washington Post colleague, online soon after it was posted.

This column was so bad that noted Nats troller Craig Calcaterra of HardballTalk (who has clearly criticized the team for the 2012 shutdown) lambasted the article in this nbcsports.com blog.  Seamheads.com’s Ted Leavengood posted a similar critique.

This column was so bad that when asked for a response, Davey Johnson called Feinstein “an idiot” during a radio appearance.

Do you know when the last time Feinstein wrote an article about baseball was?  Take a guess.  Yup; October 13th, 2012, the day after the Nats were knocked out of the NLDS, in a clearly canned article the he probably wrote in late August waiting for the Nats to lose in the playoffs.  Go back and read the 2012 article and see how awful it was as well; dripping with lazy sportswriter narrative and with not one mention or occurence of these key words: doctor, injury, medical or rehab.  You know, all the words that were key reasons as to why Strasburg was shutdown in the first place.

My opinion on this is pretty clear (most succinctly stated in this article titled “Innings Limits and Media Hypocrisy” earlier this year); if you want to criticize the Nats decision to shutdown Strasburg, then you HAVE to similarly criticize all the other “shutdowns” of pitchers we see.  If you don’t, then you’re a hypocrite; the placement of the team in the standings should NOT dictate medically-driven decisions for a 24-year old.  What really gets me is writers like Feinstein who don’t even bother to address the medical reasoning for the shutdown and act like its 1950.  Thankfully Feinstein doesn’t have a Hall of Fame vote or else he’d be posting drivel like what we get out of Murray Chass and making inane arguments about why the modern revolution of statistics is “stupid” and “ruining the sport.”

Feinstein needs to stick to his little niche of College Basketball with occasional complaints about how the PGA tour has screwed him, and keep his nose out of sports that he clearly doesn’t understand.

(Editor’s Note: I first started writing this post in May of 2011, came back to it in August of 2012.  Suddenly in Feb of 2013 this whole post got “scooped” by Craig Calcaterra on HardballTalk.   Don’t you hate it when a post you’ve had in draft mode forever is essentially duplicated while you sit on it?   At least it gave me some reason to finish it and finally publish it).

In early 2011, After watching a re-run of “Four Days in October” of the fantastic 30-for-30 series I got to thinking about the “leading” sports obsession, per city, around the country.  There were numerous shots of the town of Boston, its fans, the bars, etc, and one clearly got the impression that Boston is a “Baseball town.”  This got me thinking: what is the Leading Sport in every pro town in America?

(coincidentally,  if you’re also a fan of the 30-for-30 series, I posted a review and ranking of all 30 original episodes in December 2010.  ESPN’s 30 for 30 site also has a ranking page where, after you vote, you can see the results.  I put in my own rankings on the Dec 2010 post, which I may re-publish at some point).

Here in Washington, clearly we are a Football town.  The Redskins are king; every local sports radio show dedicates large portions of its programming to the Redskins in season or out, because that’s what draws.  The other pro teams in town are of only passing interest to casual fans, are mostly followed by die-hards (like me and the Nationals of course), but if they have a run of success (as with the Capitals now and the Nationals in the first half of 2005 or in 2012) then suddenly they’re popular.  But Football will always be king here.  Some local sportswriters have mentioned the Jayson Werth walk-off in game 4 of last year’s NLDS as the moment that “Washington became a baseball town,” but I just don’t see it.

How about the other major sports towns in America?  I took every town that has 2 or more pro franchises (since obviously, if you live in Jacksonville with only one major franchise, the answer is usually pretty clear) and put my thoughts down.  Feel free to debate, criticize, or tell me I don’t know what i’m talking about.  The towns are listed by category, in descending market size.

Four (or more) Sports towns

1. New York: Baseball.  Despite having so many sports choices, I think the history and continued dominance of the Yankees makes NYC primarily a baseball town.  That’s not to say that a city of 8 million people doesn’t support its football, basketball or hockey teams, but none of the other NY-based franchises have consistently been as good or in the news as much as the Yankees.

2. Los Angeles: Basketball.  As with the Yankees of New York, the Lakers status as one of the marquee franchises (if not THE marquee franchise) of the NBA makes this a basketball town first and foremost.  The Dodgers have 50+ years of history in the town, but the Lakers rule.  Note; of all its major city counterparts, Los Angeles is also the closest to a “college town” that you’ll see.  USC and UCLA both have major sports programs, the area hosts the Rose Bowl every year, and other lesser sports schools such as Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, and Long Beach State all have had their moments in various college sports.

3. Chicago: Baseball (but open for debate).  The Baseball history is obvious, with both teams having 100+ years of history and the Cubs being one of the marquee franchises in the sport.  The Bulls clearly made the town a Basketball town for a sustained period of time, but I don’t get the impression they’ve supplanted the Cubs.  The Blackhawks are an Original Six hockey team, and the Chicago Bears have been around since the beginning of organized professional football (In fact, they won the first NFL championship in 1933).  So there’s a ton of sports history in this town.  But do the other sports supplant the baseball culture?

4. Philadelphia: Football.  The Phillies have re-made themselves into a dominant force in Baseball over the past few years (2012 notwithstanding), but nothing stokes the fire of Pennsylvanians as much as the E-A-G-L-E-S.

5. Dallas/Fort Worth: Football.  Can’t get much more important to a town’s psyche than the Cowboys.  Even if the Mavericks win a title and the Rangers make the World Series.

6. Miami: Football by attrition.  The South Florida populace is so irritated with Jeffrey Loria that they’ll probably never be baseball diehards.  The Heat?  LeBron is johnny-come-lately.  Hockey?  In a town where it never gets below 60?  Can’t see it.  In fact, Miami may really be the most apathetic sports town out there.  The rise of the U of Miami football team helped, but that fad has passed and Miami football barely draws any more.  I don’t think you’d really say that the town is crazy over its Dolphins, but is it crazy about any of its teams?

7. Washington: Football.  The Redskins rule (as discussed above), and the other teams are only of passing interest if they’re winning (which, in the Wizards case, hasn’t happened since the late 70s).

8. Detroit: Hockey.  The Red Wings are an institution, and they don’t call Detroit “Hockey Town, USA” for nothing.  The Tigers were a laughingstock for years, the Pistons had a slight run of glory under Isaiah Thomas, and the Lions are in the midst of a horrible period.  Even with Detroit’s run of glory in the past decade, the Red Wings keep on rolling.

9. Boston: Baseball. The hold the Red Sox have on the psyche of New Englanders in general is legendary.  Boston’s other teams have had sustained runs of greatness lately, and of course the Celtics rival the Lakers in terms of legendary franchises.  But if you have to pick one team I still think its the Red Sox.

10. Atlanta: Football, I think.  The Braves made the playoffs 15 straight years but the team couldn’t sell out its playoff games.  I don’t think the town really cares about its hockey or basketball teams that much (in fact, the Hockey team moved to Winnipeg).  How about the Falcons?  Does the rise and fall of the Falcons drive sports talk in Atlanta?  Perhaps the presence of Georgia Tech and SEC football makes the town more apathetic about its Pro teams.

11. Phoenix: Debatable as well.  I’d guess Basketball as being the longest tenured professional team in Arizona.  But, a number of teams now have spring training in Arizona and the Diamondbacks have a relatively recent World Series victory.  The Arizona football team may have made a run to the 2009 Super Bowl but Arizona didn’t even have a football team for a number of years with the Rams relocation.

12. Minneapolis: Has to be Football.  The Twins are contenders now but it wasn’t too long ago that the team was in supposed danger of contraction (thanks to their penny-pinching billionaire owner Jim Pohlad and his father).  The basketball team is a punchline in the league.  One of the few major northern/cold weather cities would be a natural for Hockey, but the North Stars left town and I had to look up the current pro hockey team’s franchise name.  The Vikings current stadium is in dis-repair, and there’s rumors that the team may move from the area (perhaps to Los Angeles to continue a trend the Lakers started in 1960).  There’s a voter backlash against paying for billion dollar properties that serve only to further enrich billionaire NFL owners, so the natural move for the Vikings may be to move out of town.  Which is a shame for football diehards in the Twin Cities area.

13. Denver: Football.  They only got baseball and hockey within the past 20 years, and i’m pretty sure the Nuggets don’t outweigh the successful Broncos.

Three Sport Towns

1. Houston:  I’d say Football, if only because its Texas (where football rules) and because the baseball team has a history of underperforming.  Houston is definitely a destination spot for NBA players (tax purposes, warm-weather city) but does it out-shine the Texans?  Clearly it isn’t the Astros, who may lose 115 games this year.

2. Toronto: Hockey.  One of the original 6 NHL franchises, a troubled basketball squad and the general dissatisfaction in Canada re: professional baseball since the strike.

3. Oakland: Football. Raider-nation is psychotic.  The A’s lack of expenditure and outright politicking to move to San Jose has soured the community on baseball to the point where large swaths of the outfield are tarped over during regular season games.  Golden State has reached the playoffs once in the past 18 years.

4. St. Louis: Baseball.  Perhaps Football, with the run-and-gun Rams and the incredible noise they generate in their indoor stadium. But St. Louis has the 2nd most successful baseball franchise in the sport (in terms of World Series victories) and a continual line of success.

5. Pittsburgh: Football.  No one can trump the Steelers, not even the owned-by-team-legend Penguins.  In most other cities this would be a hockey town.

6. Tampa Bay: Football.  Despite a recent run of success, the Rays barely draw (though have great TV ratings).  The Lightning are a great team … but I can’t see such a warm weather city really dedicating itself to a cold-weather sport.  So by default we have Football.

7. Cleveland: Football. The moving of the original Browns franchise was one of the true tragedies of sports relocation; a beloved team that was well supported picking up and moving.  So controversial was the move that the city was allowed to keep its name and almost immediately an expansion team was “invented” to give back to the city.

8. Milwaukee: Football, if you count Green Bay as being in the Milwaukee Market.  And I do, which may or may not be considered “correct” in the opinion of Wisconsin natives.

Two Sport Towns: these towns are either-or, and mostly football wins.

1. San Francisco: Football.  Despite all the history with the Giants, going to 49ers games reinforces the notion that the Bay Area loves its football.  This is the single city for which I disagree with Calcaterra, perhaps because I’ve seen 49er games and, well, they’re just as crazy as Raider fans.

2. Seattle: Football. Seahawks games are notorious for being amongst the loudest in the league despite an open-air stadium.  The Mariners have some history of success, and a great following, but don’t out-weigh the Football team.

3. San Diego: Football again; the baseball team doesn’t really draw and this beautiful-weather city doesn’t like to commit to spending its sunny evenings at baseball games.  Of course, it would help if their owner would open up his pocketbook once in a while.

4. Baltimore: Football. It was a travesty when the Colts left town, but the team has embraced its Ravens.  The Orioles had their shot to take over the town during the no-football period, and it looked as if they just might.  With one of the crown jewel stadiums in the league they shot to the top of the baseball world (for a time in the mid 90s it was Baltimore with the highest payroll in the league, not the Yankees).  Unfortunately owner Angelos has run the team into the ground, and the changing baseball market forces now mean that Baltimore is destined to be a 2nd tier team for the extended future.

5. Cincinnati: Baseball.  Both pro teams (Reds and Bengals) have respected histories and long line of success.  And yet both teams have struggled as of late.  The Reds have 3 World Series victories since 1940 but none since a shock win in 1990, and its been a long time since the Big Red Machine was in effect.  But the Bengals have never won a superbowl and havn’t even reached it since 1988.   By virtue of the Reds recent run of success I’ll go with Baseball.

6. Kansas City: Football all the way.  The Royals may look dangerous this season, but they’ve lost an entire generation of fans to ineptitude.  Meanwhile the Chiefs are an original AFL landmark and make Arrowhead one of the best home field advantages in the league.

7. Indianapolis: Arguable.  Indiana is the heart of Basketball middle-america, the home of Hoosiers and major basketball pride in the high schools and colleges.  So are the Pacers the leading sports interest?  Not with the sustained success of the Colts football team, led by possible best-ever player Peyton Manning.  But Manning is gone, and I think Basketball is still king.

8. Charlotte: none?  Charlotte is home to the Panthers and to the Bobcats.  Because of the college-basketball crazy state of North Carolina, one would think that Basketball would be king.  But the new franchise has one playoff appearance in its history and seems to be going backwards under new owner Michael Jordan (at least in the opinion of basketball pundits and observers).  The Old franchise was so abhorred due to owner’s George Shinn’s personal conduct that the community more or less boycotted the games, forcing their move to New Orleans.  Meanwhile are the Panthers the hot name in town either?  They’ve made one super bowl appearance but finished last year 2-14.  I’m going with Basketball just by default.

9. New Orleans: Football!  With an exclamation point; the “Who-Dat” Saints have always been the soul of this sports-town.  2010’s Super Bowl victory was just icing on the cake.  The basketball team shouldn’t have been moved there to begin with, and struggled so badly that the league bought out Shinn’s interest in order to keep them (for whatever reason) in New Orleans.  (Perhaps a move to Seattle is in the cards?)

10. Nashville: Football. The Predators are never going to out-live the pull of the Titans.

11. Buffalo: Tough one.  I’d go Football if only because the city still holds on to its great run of super bowl appearances, except that the team is playing “home games” in Toronto every year.  The hockey team has never won the league but has been a pretty strong lately, so I’m going with a Hockey town.

Summary by sport:

• Football: 20
• Baseball: 5
• Basketball: 4
• Hockey: 3

Thoughts?  Feedback?  Do you think I have some of these cities mid-pegged?