Good day, loyal readers. As I’m sure you’ve noticed (or you could easily see by looking at the archive to the right) I haven’t written in quite a while. I wanted to write a preview for the 2011 Major League Baseball season but was unable to do it before the first pitch of the season was thrown out. With my deadline removed, this undertaking was put off time and time again until I finally had the inspiration, the time, and the motivation to write it.
Without further adieu or excuse-making…
SO FAR
(Note: all standing are entering the Sunday Night game between Atlanta and Philadelphia)
After the first month (and a little bit) of the season, there are a few surprises and a few things that everyone saw coming. What I’m going to do is go division by division, saying where the teams are right now and where I predict they’ll end up at season’s end. On top of that, I’ll try to throw in a few tidbits about what’s going on and who you should watch over the next few months.
AL EAST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
New York (19-13, -)
Tampa Bay (20-14, -)
Boston (16-18, 4)
Toronto (15-19, 5)
Baltimore (14-19, 5.5)
Predicted Order of Finish:
New York
Boston
Tampa Bay
Toronto
Baltimore
New York just has too much talent and they are getting solid contributions from people that they really didn’t expect to. Russell Martin’s batting average has swooned lately but if he can maintain a slash line of .264/.368/.516, they will be in excellent shape. On top of that, it will make the transition away from Jorge Posada being an everyday player (.146/.248/.354) that much easier. Plus, they’ve gotten solid additions from Ivan Nova and Bartolo Colon from the rotation and Curtis Granderson is leading the team in home runs. In short, the sky is the limit for this team.
You just knew that sooner or later, Boston would rebound from their horrific 0-6 start and thus far they have, going 16-12 since. Adrian Gonzalez is doing what he normally does and when he starts hitting a few more home runs, his numbers will be right at (or better) where they were last year. Carl Crawford is hitting better but is still well away from where he wants to be. Their pitching has been decent, definitely good enough with the above average offense that everyone was expecting. When they start hitting this team will start stringing wins together and I think they’ll finish with 90-95 wins, right where everyone expected them to be.
As for the rest of the division, Tampa Bay has played very well since a terrible start and the Orioles have done just the opposite. I don’t see any of those teams having any staying power in this division with the Yankees and Red Sox so I look for them to try to play the role of spoiler in the wildcard chase. Oh, and also to see how many home runs Jose Bautista will hit…
AL CENTRAL
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Cleveland (22-11, -)
Kansas City (18-16, 4.5)
Detroit (17-18, 6)
Minnesota (12-20, 9.5)
Chicago (13-22, 10)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Cleveland/Detroit
?
?
?
?
Before the season, I would have predicted that the Twins would win it in a tight three way race with Detroit and Chicago. A quick glance at the standings will show that they are a combined 18 games under .500 (42-60). So what has happened? As far as the Twins are concerned, Joe Mauer has not been hitting and Justin Morneau hasn’t looked the same since coming back from the concussion he sustained last July. Chicago is just in complete disarray and Detroit is just one game under .500 and 6 games behind a team off to a torrent start so they aren’t in that bad of a spot.
The real question is; are the Indians for real? It’s easy to forget that in 2007, they had the best record in baseball (96-66) and were one out from a trip to the World Series. That team featured Cy Young winner CC Sabathia but more importantly that team featured a healthy Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore. The last three years those two guys have been bouncing between the field and the DL. This year, they have both played significant time and Hafner is putting up the kind of line (.347/.406/.526) that reminds people of just how good he once was.
Cleveland will go as far as their pitching can take them. Right now they have a 3.24 team ERA and if that continues, they will win the division. If not, look for Detroit to wait out the other teams and steal the division with a less than stellar win total.
AL WEST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Los Angeles (20-15, -)
Oakland (18-17, 2)
Texas (18-17, 2)
Seattle (16-19, 4)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Texas
Oakland
Los Angeles
Seattle
This is one of the few divisions where they aren’t really any surprises. The Angels have been a good team under Mike Scioscia for years and seeing them in first place isn’t surprising. Texas has cooled off after a very hot start but they have players to win this division if they can stay healthy. Also look for Oakland’s young quartet of starters to lead this team to a strong second place finish.
The Mariners… well, they’re playing better than last year… that’s all I can really say right now. They are several years from contending again (and some of us just can’t wait for that).
NL EAST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Philadelphia (22-10, -)
Florida (20-13, 2.5)
Atlanta (19-16, 4.5)
Washington (16-18, 7)
New York (15-19, 8)
Predicted Order of Finish:
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Florida
Washington
New York
For the Phillies, the quartet of aces (and let’s be honest, really good former aces) has been just about as good as advertised. They have combined to go 14-6 with a 2.90 ERA and a 1.05 WHIP. Most importantly, they have managed to start the season 22-10 without Chase Utley. If he comes back close to 100%, this team becomes scary good.
Atlanta also has started off very well, specifically with their pitching rotation (which sports the best rotation ERA in the NL). If they can find the offense, they will easily win the wildcard in the National League. As far as the other three teams go, it looks like the Nationals will be a showcase for really good players until they can get enough role players to make a serious run at the division. Once Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg get to the majors, this team will be fun to watch, even if they don’t win a ton of games just yet. Frankly, it’s a miracle that the Nats are even 16-18 given that as a team, their slash line is .227/.298/.348 and their leading qualifying hitter is hitting .227.
As far as the Mets go, they aren’t going to contend for the division title or the wildcard. The most interesting thing to watch with New York’s other team is if and when they start slashing payroll and dumping veterans who haven’t earned their contract in years and are making a ton of money.
NL CENTRAL
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
St. Louis (20-15, -)
Cincinnati (18-16, 1.5)
Pittsburgh (17-17, 2.5)
Chicago (15-18, 4)
Milwaukee (14-20, 5.5)
Houston (13-21, 6.5)
Predicted Order of Finish:
St. Louis/Cincinnati
St. Louis/Cincinnati
?
?
?
?
I firmly believe that this race will come down to the Reds and Cardinals yet again and this while I never would have imagined saying this a month ago, I think the Cardinals have the inside track. This is simply because even though Albert Pujols is nowhere near on track (.248/.322/.421), Matt Holiday (.398/.484/.611) and Lance Berkman (.374/.452/.738) are hitting like they want to rearrange the record books. Even though they will inevitably cool off, Pujols will inevitably heat up.
The most unfortunate story out of this division has to be the Milwaukee Brewers. They put pretty much everything into winning this year and so far it that plan has been completely derailed. There is still plenty of time to rebound but they are chasing two solid teams and they only have so much time for Zach Greinke to prove that trading for him wasn’t a monumental mistake. When you add this to the fact that with their long term commitment to Ryan Braun and the accompanying signals that they don’t believe they can resign Prince Fielder, it looks like this might be the beginning of a rebuilding phase.
NL WEST
Current Standings:
Team (W-L, GB)
Colorado (18-14, -)
San Francisco (18-16, 1)
Los Angeles (16-19, 3.5)
Arizona (15-18, 3.5)
San Diego (14-20, 5)
Projected Order of Finish:
Colorado
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Arizona
San Diego
This is the only division that I see the current standings holding up throughout the season. This is due to the fact that the standings in other divisions are influenced by teams getting off to hot or cold starts that nobody foresaw.
With regards to the defending World Series Champions, I question their ability to avoid a letdown. They have many great players and if Pablo Sandoval keeps his weight down, they will be a very good team. Will they be good enough to get to the low-mid 90’s in wins? I’m not sure if they are and I think that might be what they need to do to win either the division or the wildcard.
Colorado has played well and their bullpen has bitten them a bit recently but keep in mind that they got off to a great start and are now still over .500 and in first place despite:
- Carlos Gonzalez off to a bad start with the bat (.241/.305/.336 compared with .336/.376/.598 from a year ago)
- A team batting line that is nothing short of atrocious (.237/.322/.379)
- Ubaldo Jimenez is 0-2 with a 5.88 ERA and a WHIP of 1.46 (compared with 19-8, 2.88, and 1.15 from a year ago)
The Dodger have a good team and several quality players but the ownership situation they are in is awful and unlike the Rangers last year, their situation is being played out in a huge media market and they play in a much tougher division than the Rangers had to contend with a year ago.
PLAYOFFS
The National League will be represented by Philadelphia, St. Louis, Colorado, and Atlanta while the American League will be represented by New York, Detroit, Texas, and Boston.
NLDS
Philadelphia over St. Louis
Atlanta over Colorado
ALDS
Detroit over New York
Boston over Texas
LCS
Philadelphia over Atlanta
Boston over Detroit
World Series
Philadelphia over Boston
Cy Young
Roy Halladay, PHI
Jered Weaver, LAA
MVP
Matt Holiday, STL
Curtis Granderson, NYY
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
IF SOME IS GOOD, MORE IS BETTER... RIGHT?
Clearly, VCU belonged in the 2011 edition of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Selection Committee did the right thing by choosing VCU over the likes of Colorado, Virginia Tech, and Harvard. However, the Committee doubly disrespected VCU by giving them an 11 seed and then making them play an additional game just to get into the field of 64 teams.
Right?
Nope.
Based on their resume, they were a shaky 11 seed at best and they were a hair’s breadth from not even being in the tournament, First Four or not. But then how else can you explain the meteoric rise from a 23-11 regular season record to steamrolling a team from every major conference except the SEC and with the exception of their Florida State game, doing so by at least 10 points? Clearly they were underrated coming into the NCAA tournament.
Right?
Again, nope.
Every year, the NCAA tournament, accurately nicknamed “March Madness”, claims to crown the best team in all of college basketball. However, if you look at the winners closely and then look at the performance of teams during the regular season, that statement isn’t always true. In the past 29 NCAA tournaments, only 4 times has a team entered the tournament ranked #1 in the country and then gone on to win the national title. Let’s compare that, for just a moment, to everyone’s favorite punching bag; the BCS.
Since the inception of the BCS in 1998, how many times has the 10th best team in the country won the national title? That’s right, never. How many times has a team ranked as low at 40th had a shot at a national title this late in a season? Same as before, never. If you look strictly at seeds (and assume that each of these four teams was the best on their seed line), this Final Four is matching up the 9th, 13th, 29th, and 41st best teams in the country.
In this day and age of rampant parity, the NCAA Tournament does not necessarily crown the best team; it crowns the hottest team. The story has become downright famous by now but 24 days ago, Connecticut was 21-9 and facing a tremendous challenge. At some point in their preparation for the Big East tournament they caught fire and haven’t lost since and currently they are the highest seed left in the Big Dance.
No matter what format you choose to determine a national champion, as long as the results are determined on the field of play, there is always a chance that a lesser team will win and the true best team will be left behind. However, there is a way to minimize the chances of this happening but they are thoroughly impractical at the college level; playoff series.
Can a lesser team beat a better team in one game with everything on the line? Of course they can. VCU proved that last weekend by outplaying a better Kansas team. Could VCU beat Kansas 4 times in a 7 game series? Yes, they can, but if you want to put money on VCU, I’ll take that bet every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Playoff series expose lesser teams for all the faults that make them lesser teams; not as much depth, inferior coaching, and inferior talent among them. Therefore, the better team is far more likely to win a playoff series than a one game, winner-take-all slugfest.
As I said, series are impractical at the college level and they are also impractical for the sport of football. So we circle back to the original point which was the best team does not necessarily win the NCAA Tournament. Usually it is the hottest team and when the better team is not the hotter team, a significant gap in talent can make up for that difference. With star college players staying in college for less and less time at the NBA stepping stone schools, the overall talent level at those schools has decreased while the talent level at smaller schools has increased.
What all of this boils down to is smaller schools are led by talented veteran players while many big-time programs are led by veteran role players and green stars. Because of the shrinking talent disparity between the big and small programs, Kansas can’t afford to shoot 35% against VCU and win. Louisville can’t go scoreless for their first 7 minutes against Morehead State and win. Is all of this a bad thing? Not at all. In my personal pantheon of sporting events, the World Series ranks first and just behind it is the NCAA Tournament. I don’t care that I do poorly in my family pool and I don’t care if the best teams are left on the sidelines, watching the Final Four on CBS (if they wanted to be on the court and not on the couch, they should have played better). It is a wonderful event and this year should prove once again that by getting in with a seed other than 16, anything can happen.
MOTIVATION
Another reason for so many of these upsets is the end goal that the teams have in mind. The NCAA Tournament is set-up with several stepping stones before you even reach the national title game. For instance, let’s look at a 2 seed is playing a 7 seed in the second round. The 2 seed is seen by many as a national title contender and they are expected to give the 1 seed in their region all they can handle in the Elite 8. The 7 seed, on the other hand, had a breakthrough year and made the tournament for the first time in the program’s history. The 2 seed has dreams of winning a national title while the 7 seed has dreams of making the Sweet 16.
So what happens? The 2 seed falls flat because they were looking at their potential match-ups in the next two or three rounds while the 7 seed played like their entire season was on the line. Invariably, the 7 seed will fall flat in the next round because they already achieved their goal of playing in the Sweet 16.
To cross to a different sport for a moment, in 2007, the Colorado Rockies had a truly unimaginable run to make it to the World Series, winning 21 of 22 games down the stretch and through the NLDS and NLCS. They achieved something beyond their wildest dreams and they won the National League. When the World Series started, they were happy to be there while their opponents, the Red Sox, were not happy to just be there. Predictably, the Rockies never really got into the series and lost 4-0.
Was Kansas looking ahead to the Final Four when VCU blitzed them? Possibly. Will VCU maintain their focus and not settle for just making it to the Final Four? History would suggest no but anything can happen.
EXPANSION
So if VCU was the last team into this tournament and they made this unbelievable run to the Final Four, then clearly the tournament would be better served by having more teams… right? Yes and no. Financially speaking, they would be better served. There would be more games (for instance, depending on format a 96 team field would yield 79 games versus 65 this year) which would mean that there are more opportunities for advertising revenue and ticket revenue and so on and so forth. For all the hot air spewing forth about how people will stop watching when the NCAA’s greed becomes so obvious that everyone can see it, people will still watch the NCAA tournament and companies will still pay big money for advertising. At this point in time, there is little to no incentive for the NCAA to NOT expand the tournament.
At what point would expansion harm the integrity of the tournament though? At what point would first round games be so pointless that the tournament has become more about the advertisers and less about the players? I felt very conflicted about having play-in games at the 11 and 12 seed level this year but in retrospect, having play-in games at those levels matters. Everyone knew that no matter who won between the University of North Carolina-Asheville and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, they were going to get blown out by Pittsburgh (which UNCA did, 74-51). So I’ll admit that this little quirk in the selection process worked this year. However, that is no guarantee that it will work next year or any other year in the future.
In short, expanding the tournament any further is not a good idea. There is a beauty and a symmetry of having 16 teams in 4 different regions and have one representative from each play-off for the national title and I think if you do a little searching around the internet, you’ll find a ton of people who agree with me. The problem is that those same people (myself included) won’t stop watching if the powers that be keep expanding it… which means there’s no reason not to.
Right?
Nope.
Based on their resume, they were a shaky 11 seed at best and they were a hair’s breadth from not even being in the tournament, First Four or not. But then how else can you explain the meteoric rise from a 23-11 regular season record to steamrolling a team from every major conference except the SEC and with the exception of their Florida State game, doing so by at least 10 points? Clearly they were underrated coming into the NCAA tournament.
Right?
Again, nope.
Every year, the NCAA tournament, accurately nicknamed “March Madness”, claims to crown the best team in all of college basketball. However, if you look at the winners closely and then look at the performance of teams during the regular season, that statement isn’t always true. In the past 29 NCAA tournaments, only 4 times has a team entered the tournament ranked #1 in the country and then gone on to win the national title. Let’s compare that, for just a moment, to everyone’s favorite punching bag; the BCS.
Since the inception of the BCS in 1998, how many times has the 10th best team in the country won the national title? That’s right, never. How many times has a team ranked as low at 40th had a shot at a national title this late in a season? Same as before, never. If you look strictly at seeds (and assume that each of these four teams was the best on their seed line), this Final Four is matching up the 9th, 13th, 29th, and 41st best teams in the country.
In this day and age of rampant parity, the NCAA Tournament does not necessarily crown the best team; it crowns the hottest team. The story has become downright famous by now but 24 days ago, Connecticut was 21-9 and facing a tremendous challenge. At some point in their preparation for the Big East tournament they caught fire and haven’t lost since and currently they are the highest seed left in the Big Dance.
No matter what format you choose to determine a national champion, as long as the results are determined on the field of play, there is always a chance that a lesser team will win and the true best team will be left behind. However, there is a way to minimize the chances of this happening but they are thoroughly impractical at the college level; playoff series.
Can a lesser team beat a better team in one game with everything on the line? Of course they can. VCU proved that last weekend by outplaying a better Kansas team. Could VCU beat Kansas 4 times in a 7 game series? Yes, they can, but if you want to put money on VCU, I’ll take that bet every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Playoff series expose lesser teams for all the faults that make them lesser teams; not as much depth, inferior coaching, and inferior talent among them. Therefore, the better team is far more likely to win a playoff series than a one game, winner-take-all slugfest.
As I said, series are impractical at the college level and they are also impractical for the sport of football. So we circle back to the original point which was the best team does not necessarily win the NCAA Tournament. Usually it is the hottest team and when the better team is not the hotter team, a significant gap in talent can make up for that difference. With star college players staying in college for less and less time at the NBA stepping stone schools, the overall talent level at those schools has decreased while the talent level at smaller schools has increased.
What all of this boils down to is smaller schools are led by talented veteran players while many big-time programs are led by veteran role players and green stars. Because of the shrinking talent disparity between the big and small programs, Kansas can’t afford to shoot 35% against VCU and win. Louisville can’t go scoreless for their first 7 minutes against Morehead State and win. Is all of this a bad thing? Not at all. In my personal pantheon of sporting events, the World Series ranks first and just behind it is the NCAA Tournament. I don’t care that I do poorly in my family pool and I don’t care if the best teams are left on the sidelines, watching the Final Four on CBS (if they wanted to be on the court and not on the couch, they should have played better). It is a wonderful event and this year should prove once again that by getting in with a seed other than 16, anything can happen.
MOTIVATION
Another reason for so many of these upsets is the end goal that the teams have in mind. The NCAA Tournament is set-up with several stepping stones before you even reach the national title game. For instance, let’s look at a 2 seed is playing a 7 seed in the second round. The 2 seed is seen by many as a national title contender and they are expected to give the 1 seed in their region all they can handle in the Elite 8. The 7 seed, on the other hand, had a breakthrough year and made the tournament for the first time in the program’s history. The 2 seed has dreams of winning a national title while the 7 seed has dreams of making the Sweet 16.
So what happens? The 2 seed falls flat because they were looking at their potential match-ups in the next two or three rounds while the 7 seed played like their entire season was on the line. Invariably, the 7 seed will fall flat in the next round because they already achieved their goal of playing in the Sweet 16.
To cross to a different sport for a moment, in 2007, the Colorado Rockies had a truly unimaginable run to make it to the World Series, winning 21 of 22 games down the stretch and through the NLDS and NLCS. They achieved something beyond their wildest dreams and they won the National League. When the World Series started, they were happy to be there while their opponents, the Red Sox, were not happy to just be there. Predictably, the Rockies never really got into the series and lost 4-0.
Was Kansas looking ahead to the Final Four when VCU blitzed them? Possibly. Will VCU maintain their focus and not settle for just making it to the Final Four? History would suggest no but anything can happen.
EXPANSION
So if VCU was the last team into this tournament and they made this unbelievable run to the Final Four, then clearly the tournament would be better served by having more teams… right? Yes and no. Financially speaking, they would be better served. There would be more games (for instance, depending on format a 96 team field would yield 79 games versus 65 this year) which would mean that there are more opportunities for advertising revenue and ticket revenue and so on and so forth. For all the hot air spewing forth about how people will stop watching when the NCAA’s greed becomes so obvious that everyone can see it, people will still watch the NCAA tournament and companies will still pay big money for advertising. At this point in time, there is little to no incentive for the NCAA to NOT expand the tournament.
At what point would expansion harm the integrity of the tournament though? At what point would first round games be so pointless that the tournament has become more about the advertisers and less about the players? I felt very conflicted about having play-in games at the 11 and 12 seed level this year but in retrospect, having play-in games at those levels matters. Everyone knew that no matter who won between the University of North Carolina-Asheville and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, they were going to get blown out by Pittsburgh (which UNCA did, 74-51). So I’ll admit that this little quirk in the selection process worked this year. However, that is no guarantee that it will work next year or any other year in the future.
In short, expanding the tournament any further is not a good idea. There is a beauty and a symmetry of having 16 teams in 4 different regions and have one representative from each play-off for the national title and I think if you do a little searching around the internet, you’ll find a ton of people who agree with me. The problem is that those same people (myself included) won’t stop watching if the powers that be keep expanding it… which means there’s no reason not to.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
MARCH MADNESS IN FULL SWING
First of all, I have to ask… how is your bracket looking? That bad, huh? Well don’t feel too bad about it because the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is turning into an exercise in roulette. On paper, I can tell you what should have happened in each of the four play-in games, each of the 32 second round games, and each of the 16 third round games but as they say so many times that I’m sick of hearing it, games are not played on paper.
Similarly to last year, I attempted to look at the field of 68 from a statistical perspective and determine who should be the best team in the country and just like last year, I was able to predict some very interesting upsets and I also fell drastically short on others.
Before I go any further, for the sake of this post, the word “upset” will be used to describe a game in which a lower seed beats a higher seed… that’s all. Secondly, even though I referred to them correctly in the first paragraph, I will break with the new convention set this year. There were four play-in games, 32 games in the first round, and 16 games in the second round. I do not consider it a round when 8 teams are playing and 60 teams are sitting at home. I will arbitrarily say that half the teams in the field should be playing to qualify as the first round. Maybe if the number increases to 16 or 32 teams then I can call it the preliminary round or maybe the wildcard round but the first round is still when the majority of teams are playing for the first time.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, why do I call this tournament a complete gamble? Entirely due to one thing that professional leagues strive for and college leagues have – parity. The interesting part is that with regards to the NCAA tournament, parity does not mean that any team can break through and win a national championship. It simply means that any team can play for forty solid minutes with any other team in the field. When I looked at this field, I see 6-8 legitimate title contenders (Kansas, Ohio State, Duke, Pittsburgh, Florida, North Carolina, and Connecticut). I also see 6-8 teams that have little to no business being in this tournament but they won their conference tournaments so they get in automatically as a 15 or 16 seed and I’m fine with that. What we’re left with is anywhere from 52 to 56 teams that are on relatively similar ground and this theory is proven out by the fact that there are relatively few blowouts (outside of the group of title contenders I mentioned earlier) and there are 3 teams with seeds higher than 10 in the sweet 16.
There are such things as flukes but was Butler a fluke? Several of the analysts said that Richmond was a very tough draw as a number 12 seed and while they did not play Louisville, they were easily the best team on the floor against Morehead State (#13) and Vanderbilt (#5). Washington was a #7 seed and yet gave #2 North Carolina every bit that they could handle and nearly came away with a victory despite doing their best to lose the game.
My point in all of this is the seeds are blurring together. The difference between a #3 and a #12 might be nothing more than who they played during the season, the luck they had with injuries, the conference they played in, and individual match-ups they have. What makes this tournament so wonderful and so terribly difficult to predict is the fact that if Jimmer Fredette shoots the ball well and his teammates also shoot the ball well, BYU looks like a national title contender. Against Gonzaga, they were 14-28 from 3-point range and shot 52.5% overall en route to scoring 89 points and routing the Bulldogs. In their last game before the NCAA tourney on March 12, they were 19-59 from the floor (32.2%) and 6-24 from 3 point range (25%) and they were destroyed by San Diego State.
Much was made during the selection show and the three days leading up to the start of the first round about how many losses there were for these teams and many people took that to be an indictment of the overall quality of the field, saying that it was very low. However, I take a differing view. Simply put, parity rules. On March 15th, the final AP poll was released and in the top 25, five teams had 10 or more losses and another two had 9 losses. Four of those seven teams were from one conference that is widely considered the deepest and best basketball conference in the country, the Big East.
Is #9 Connecticut (26-9) a better team than #10 BYU (30-4)? According to record, no they aren’t. However, when you take into account that of Connecticut’s 9 losses, six came to teams ranked at the time, two came to teams ranked in the final AP poll, and the last (Marquette) received votes in the final AP Poll, it sounds like they were all quality losses. Would a stronger team have won some of those games? Of course, but when one team plays just three games against ranked opponents and the other plays 15 game against ranked opponents, 26-9 starts to look a lot better than 30-4.
On top of all of this, when filling out a bracket you have no idea who is going to show up. Louisville was 7 minutes into their game against Morehead State when they scored their first point. I was sure that the dry spell would end after three or so minutes when Louisville was fouled while shooting and had two free throws (which were both missed). On the flipside of the Louisville/Pittsburgh coin, Ohio State came in as a bit of a wildcard for me considering they have had some underachieving tournament teams in the past. Right now, they are playing like the number one overall seed and after spotting George Mason an 11-2 lead, they ran them out of the state of Ohio, cruising to a final score of 98-66.
SWEET 16 PREDICTIONS
Out of the final 16 teams, I correctly predicted 7 of them (Kansas from the Southwest, Ohio State and Kentucky from the East, Duke and San Diego State from the West, and BYU and Florida from the Southeast). Given that wonderful record and that I’ve correctly predicted just 31 of 48 games correctly, take this all with a grain of salt (or a salt mine worth of salt).
EAST
North Carolina likes to give up points (170 in two tournament games thus far) but they are good enough offensively. They will get past Marquette.
Kentucky is good. Ohio State could be the only great team in this field and they are clicking on all 10 (12, I don’t know, 16?) cylinders.
Regional Final – Ohio State over North Carolina
WEST
Duke struggled mightily against Michigan and Arizona has played well enough to put together last minute victories against Memphis and Texas.
Connecticut is somehow continuing their streak from the Big East tournament but they face a very solid San Diego State squad.
Regional Final – sticking to my guns, San Diego State will advance to Houston by beating Duke.
SOUTHWEST
Kansas isn’t playing like the Buckeyes but they are playing well and winning solidly.
The other three teams in the region are seeded 10th, 11th, and 12th.
Regional Final – Kansas over the three dwarves, becoming just the second team ever to advance to the Final Four by never having to play a team seeded higher than 9.
SOUTHEAST
Butler is scrapping by and they are an exceedingly dangerous team due to their veteran presence. Despite Wisconsin’s success thus far this is a team that scored 33 points in losing to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament. That performance would fly in 1950 but not 2011.
Is Florida going to be able to stop the Jimmer Show? The answer is it doesn’t matter. They have to stop the other eleven guys on the roster. Against Gonzaga, BYU players not named Fredette were 20-36 from the floor and 7-16 from 3 point range for 55 points. Against San Diego State, those numbers were 9-34, 4-17, and 24 points.
Regional Final – Butler makes a return trip to the Final Four by beating whoever survives the seven overtime slugfest between Florida and BYU.
FINAL FOUR
Butler continues their magic by beating Kansas (and thus ruining any chance my bracket had at respectability) and Ohio State steamrolls San Diego State who is just overjoyed to be in the Final Four.
On Monday, Ohio State takes a 20 point lead into halftime. Once everyone changes the channel to see how well Rob Lowe will do as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on “Two and a Half Men”, Butler starts chipping away, tying the game with ten seconds left. True to this tournament’s form, Butler is called for a reach-in foul 60 feet from the hoop and the fouled Buckeye steps to the line and calmly sinks two free throws with four seconds remaining.
Then Matt Howard does what Gordon Hayward couldn’t do last year; hit a halfcourt runner at the buzzer to win the game 73-72.
Wow, I got my heart pumping just thinking about that. Enjoy the basketball people, this is the best ball that you’re likely to ever see.
(having said all that, it’d be nice but far more likely is Ohio State and Kansas playing a three overtime epic and the Buckeyes prevailing to take the trophy)
Similarly to last year, I attempted to look at the field of 68 from a statistical perspective and determine who should be the best team in the country and just like last year, I was able to predict some very interesting upsets and I also fell drastically short on others.
Before I go any further, for the sake of this post, the word “upset” will be used to describe a game in which a lower seed beats a higher seed… that’s all. Secondly, even though I referred to them correctly in the first paragraph, I will break with the new convention set this year. There were four play-in games, 32 games in the first round, and 16 games in the second round. I do not consider it a round when 8 teams are playing and 60 teams are sitting at home. I will arbitrarily say that half the teams in the field should be playing to qualify as the first round. Maybe if the number increases to 16 or 32 teams then I can call it the preliminary round or maybe the wildcard round but the first round is still when the majority of teams are playing for the first time.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, why do I call this tournament a complete gamble? Entirely due to one thing that professional leagues strive for and college leagues have – parity. The interesting part is that with regards to the NCAA tournament, parity does not mean that any team can break through and win a national championship. It simply means that any team can play for forty solid minutes with any other team in the field. When I looked at this field, I see 6-8 legitimate title contenders (Kansas, Ohio State, Duke, Pittsburgh, Florida, North Carolina, and Connecticut). I also see 6-8 teams that have little to no business being in this tournament but they won their conference tournaments so they get in automatically as a 15 or 16 seed and I’m fine with that. What we’re left with is anywhere from 52 to 56 teams that are on relatively similar ground and this theory is proven out by the fact that there are relatively few blowouts (outside of the group of title contenders I mentioned earlier) and there are 3 teams with seeds higher than 10 in the sweet 16.
There are such things as flukes but was Butler a fluke? Several of the analysts said that Richmond was a very tough draw as a number 12 seed and while they did not play Louisville, they were easily the best team on the floor against Morehead State (#13) and Vanderbilt (#5). Washington was a #7 seed and yet gave #2 North Carolina every bit that they could handle and nearly came away with a victory despite doing their best to lose the game.
My point in all of this is the seeds are blurring together. The difference between a #3 and a #12 might be nothing more than who they played during the season, the luck they had with injuries, the conference they played in, and individual match-ups they have. What makes this tournament so wonderful and so terribly difficult to predict is the fact that if Jimmer Fredette shoots the ball well and his teammates also shoot the ball well, BYU looks like a national title contender. Against Gonzaga, they were 14-28 from 3-point range and shot 52.5% overall en route to scoring 89 points and routing the Bulldogs. In their last game before the NCAA tourney on March 12, they were 19-59 from the floor (32.2%) and 6-24 from 3 point range (25%) and they were destroyed by San Diego State.
Much was made during the selection show and the three days leading up to the start of the first round about how many losses there were for these teams and many people took that to be an indictment of the overall quality of the field, saying that it was very low. However, I take a differing view. Simply put, parity rules. On March 15th, the final AP poll was released and in the top 25, five teams had 10 or more losses and another two had 9 losses. Four of those seven teams were from one conference that is widely considered the deepest and best basketball conference in the country, the Big East.
Is #9 Connecticut (26-9) a better team than #10 BYU (30-4)? According to record, no they aren’t. However, when you take into account that of Connecticut’s 9 losses, six came to teams ranked at the time, two came to teams ranked in the final AP poll, and the last (Marquette) received votes in the final AP Poll, it sounds like they were all quality losses. Would a stronger team have won some of those games? Of course, but when one team plays just three games against ranked opponents and the other plays 15 game against ranked opponents, 26-9 starts to look a lot better than 30-4.
On top of all of this, when filling out a bracket you have no idea who is going to show up. Louisville was 7 minutes into their game against Morehead State when they scored their first point. I was sure that the dry spell would end after three or so minutes when Louisville was fouled while shooting and had two free throws (which were both missed). On the flipside of the Louisville/Pittsburgh coin, Ohio State came in as a bit of a wildcard for me considering they have had some underachieving tournament teams in the past. Right now, they are playing like the number one overall seed and after spotting George Mason an 11-2 lead, they ran them out of the state of Ohio, cruising to a final score of 98-66.
SWEET 16 PREDICTIONS
Out of the final 16 teams, I correctly predicted 7 of them (Kansas from the Southwest, Ohio State and Kentucky from the East, Duke and San Diego State from the West, and BYU and Florida from the Southeast). Given that wonderful record and that I’ve correctly predicted just 31 of 48 games correctly, take this all with a grain of salt (or a salt mine worth of salt).
EAST
North Carolina likes to give up points (170 in two tournament games thus far) but they are good enough offensively. They will get past Marquette.
Kentucky is good. Ohio State could be the only great team in this field and they are clicking on all 10 (12, I don’t know, 16?) cylinders.
Regional Final – Ohio State over North Carolina
WEST
Duke struggled mightily against Michigan and Arizona has played well enough to put together last minute victories against Memphis and Texas.
Connecticut is somehow continuing their streak from the Big East tournament but they face a very solid San Diego State squad.
Regional Final – sticking to my guns, San Diego State will advance to Houston by beating Duke.
SOUTHWEST
Kansas isn’t playing like the Buckeyes but they are playing well and winning solidly.
The other three teams in the region are seeded 10th, 11th, and 12th.
Regional Final – Kansas over the three dwarves, becoming just the second team ever to advance to the Final Four by never having to play a team seeded higher than 9.
SOUTHEAST
Butler is scrapping by and they are an exceedingly dangerous team due to their veteran presence. Despite Wisconsin’s success thus far this is a team that scored 33 points in losing to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament. That performance would fly in 1950 but not 2011.
Is Florida going to be able to stop the Jimmer Show? The answer is it doesn’t matter. They have to stop the other eleven guys on the roster. Against Gonzaga, BYU players not named Fredette were 20-36 from the floor and 7-16 from 3 point range for 55 points. Against San Diego State, those numbers were 9-34, 4-17, and 24 points.
Regional Final – Butler makes a return trip to the Final Four by beating whoever survives the seven overtime slugfest between Florida and BYU.
FINAL FOUR
Butler continues their magic by beating Kansas (and thus ruining any chance my bracket had at respectability) and Ohio State steamrolls San Diego State who is just overjoyed to be in the Final Four.
On Monday, Ohio State takes a 20 point lead into halftime. Once everyone changes the channel to see how well Rob Lowe will do as Charlie Sheen’s replacement on “Two and a Half Men”, Butler starts chipping away, tying the game with ten seconds left. True to this tournament’s form, Butler is called for a reach-in foul 60 feet from the hoop and the fouled Buckeye steps to the line and calmly sinks two free throws with four seconds remaining.
Then Matt Howard does what Gordon Hayward couldn’t do last year; hit a halfcourt runner at the buzzer to win the game 73-72.
Wow, I got my heart pumping just thinking about that. Enjoy the basketball people, this is the best ball that you’re likely to ever see.
(having said all that, it’d be nice but far more likely is Ohio State and Kansas playing a three overtime epic and the Buckeyes prevailing to take the trophy)
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The Rime of the Ancient Sports Leagues
Money money everywhere and all the leagues did shrink
Money money everywhere and not a drop to drink
Ah, few things take me back quite like the poem based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”… anyway, enough nostalgia. At some point, the NFL Players Association and the NFL owners will sign a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. It might be sooner and it might be later (my better half is hoping for later… she tolerates me watching American Football of any kind). Between “The Decision” of LeBron James and “The Manipulation” of Carmelo Anthony, the hard line taken by the NFL owners, and the sounding of Hank Steinbrenner, I think that there is a larger issue that is troubling all of the major professional leagues in North America. In the interest of full disclosure, I did feel the need to say North America instead of the United States because of the 8 teams (out of 122) that reside north of the border.
So what is the larger issue? That millionaires and billionaires can’t agree over who gets the money? I hate to be so blunt about it but if you are under the impression that this problem is a new one to the economic model of this country, you’ve obviously been living under a rock for the past few decades. What is the solution? Nationalize the whole industry? While that might be the answer for some problems, it is not the answer for this one (although it would probably help reduce the deficit significantly).
What I’d like to do is examine each sport and see where they stand with regards to the specific issues which are plaguing them publicly. I don’t delve into the inner workings of professional sporting leagues and it’s entirely possible that the biggest problem facing each league isn’t the one I mention. However, these are the issues that are getting the most play in the press and it’s there that I will focus this post.
Before we get into it, I have to apologize to all of you hockey fans out there. I don’t understand hockey and the only time in my life that I’ve ever watched a hockey game from start to finish was the 2010 gold medal game. Having said that, I don’t know what is plaguing the league other than the fact that it’s getting closer and closer to being replaced as a member of the “Big 4” club by NASCAR. I don’t follow hockey and I still say that would be a sad day.
NBA
Last summer we were bombarded by “The Decision”. Starting last year and going almost all the way up to the trade deadline this year we were treated to “The Manipulation”. The big picture issue is whether or not superstars should team up and form these trios in an attempt to win with three stars and ten role players. Many say that it started with Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett being traded to the Celtics to team up with Paul Pierce and has continued today with the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks (and you could probably throw the Lakers in there… especially if the rumors are true and Dwight Howard ends up there soon). The question is, is this good for the league?
I’ve heard and read about many former players that are condemning these actions, saying that they would rather beat the best than play with the best and I completely understand this mentality. However, how many titles did LeBron James win in Cleveland as the lone superstar? How about Dwayne Wade in Miami? How about Kobe Bryant in LA?
In this day and age, the titles follow the superstars and while that last example may not quite hold water (Kobe) that would depend entirely on your definition of superstar. While I personally would not put Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom into that category, I also don’t think they’re that far off.
Going back further, how many titles did David Robinson win as the dominant inside force he was before Tim Duncan came along? How many did Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett combine for before they teamed up?
As I’m sure you can guess the answer to all those questions is zero. One player can’t take a team all the way in the NBA today and I would argue that the same has been true throughout the history of the NBA. In 1997, a panel consisting of members of the media, former players and coaches, and former and current front office members selected the greatest 50 players from the first fifty years of NBA history. By the logic exhibited by several former players, you would never want to team up with those guys; you would want to beat those guys. Of those 50, only 4 never played with another member of the exclusive club.
George Mikan
Bob Petit
Isaiah Thomas
Patrick Ewing
Another noteworthy factoid from that list; only once has a team has had five players that ended up being named one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players ever playing on the same team. They were:
1973-74 New York Knicks
Willis Reed
Walt Frazier
Dave DeBusschere
Jerry Lucas
Earl Monroe
Considering that Mikan and Petit played in an era where there were so few good players, much less stars, I think we can safely exclude their combined 6 championships from this discussion. Thomas and Ewing combined to play 30 seasons in the NBA and won two titles (both by Thomas). At that time the Lakers and Celtics dynasties of the ‘80’s were winding down and the Bulls weren’t quite ready for the spotlight yet, leaving a perfect void for a very good and tough team led by one great player.
I fully understand that very few of the players on that list manipulated their way from one team to another or staged an hour long primetime special to say nine words but the fact remains that championship teams have always formed around the combination of great players with role players filling in the gaps.
So what is the harm with great young players wanting to team up in an attempt to win a championship? If they don’t care about winning and only want to set records and make money, they can easily go to a team like Cleveland or the Clippers, make $20 million a season and get the lion’s share of the ball. Instead, you have three young superstars in James, Wade, and Bosh who are all willing to take a slightly diminished role in order to play with one another. That, in this day and age of prima donnas, isn’t such a bad trait.
The problem I have is not that they wanted to team up, it’s how they did it; through the media. Carmelo Anthony very publicly wanted out and that drastically reduced Denver’s leverage in the trade negotiations as teams knew they were desperate to get something back for him. On the other hand, LeBron James wrangled a three ring circus and then left the Cavaliers with nothing.
Now you have the formation of an aristocratic class of teams in the NBA, the Heat, Celtics, Knicks, Lakers, and Spurs with the Bulls and Mavericks close behind, while the rest of the league is left high and dry.
Is there a solution? Yes.
Will the owners like it? No.
Why? The almighty dollar.
THE NFL
Whenever it comes to labor renegotiations in professional sports, you have to maintain some semblance of perspective. According to figures researched by Plunkett Research, LTD (a firm that looks into industry trends, statistics, and analysis of top companies) the NFL produced $7.8 billion in total revenue last year. The numbers vary slightly from year to year but the exact numbers aren’t really necessary; ballpark figures will suffice. Under the current collective bargaining agreement (hereafter abbreviated CBA) the owners take $1 billion off the top of that number to distribute amongst themselves. After that, it goes into a pool that is shared by the owners and players. Under the current agreement (if my memory serves me this today) the players cut of that is 60%. If we assume that revenue figure is accurate, that comes out to $4.08 billion that goes to the players, both past and present.
However, the owners are shrewd businessmen and like more zeroes in their bank accounts. They want to take another billion off the top before the revenue sharing kicks in. With these figures, the owners’ share of the pie would go from $3.72 billion to $4.32 billion. If we were to simply spread the remainder of the pie amongst the roughly 1,600 NFL players and we were to ignore things like pension plans, then the average salary in the NFL would drop 14.7% from $2.55 million to $2.18 million.
Again, we have a situation where millionaires are arguing with billionaires over a very large, lucrative pie. I’ll admit that there are certain issues that the owners have (such as a rookie salary wage) that make a lot of sense. However, trimming another 13% of their leagues revenues out for themselves is nothing short of ridiculous. The problem is it’s entirely possible that they’ll get it.
MLB
Is the league’s business model straying towards socialism? Perhaps, a little but I don’t have any problem with that. What I do have a problem with is teams like the Yankees and Red Sox paying vast amounts of money that eventually ends up in the hands of teams that simply deposit it in their bank accounts. The entire point of the revenue sharing agreement was for teams who didn’t play in a market that could justify a $100 million payroll (Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Tampa Bay) to have a $100 million payroll and compete directly with the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox.
First of all, I’m not suggesting that every team should be spending $100 million on its 25 man roster. However, it’s difficult to call the Yankees and Red Sox the problem when the Pirates have spent less money in the last five years (while posting a 321-488 record) than the Yankees did to go 95-67 this past year.
What is the solution? A salary cap? The problem with a cap of any kind is the players don’t want anything to do with it and the player’s union is the strongest of any of the Big 4 sports (in my opinion). What’s another solution?
What are the solutions to these problems?
ARE THERE SOLUTIONS?
All of them center on the almighty dollar. Everyone wants more money and they want to sacrifice less and less to the guys on the other side of the bargaining table. On top of that, none of the parties that are actually doing the bargaining (the player’s rep and the commissioner) want to appear weak by giving too much or else they’ll be out of a job very quickly and you must remember that these are not minimum wage jobs.
All of these problems are easy to solve one of two ways (though really it just ends up as one big problem) as long as you don’t include the players in the decision making process… or the owners for that matter.
In the NBA, eliminate the salary structure that is now in place. How much help will that provide with regards to keeping players in smaller markets? Quite a bit. The difference right now between a max contract in Miami and a max contract in Cleveland is one additional year. The Average Annual Salary (AAS from now on) remains roughly the same. Now imagine that the Cavaliers were able to offer a contract worth an additional $10 million per season… or $20 million. Would that be enough to offset the desire to go to more tourist friendly cities? Absolutely, but here comes the problem… payrolls explode and now, the Cavaliers can’t afford that kind of payroll and neither can the Clippers or the Kings or the Nets. Finally, after much consternation and realizing that all the great players end up in big markets anyway, the NBA eliminates four teams.
In the NFL, the player’s union records some landmark deals in order to secure more of the revenue pie for active players but also much more for retired players and the NFL owners are exposed as the 19th century businessmen that many of them are, putting profits ahead of the well-being of the workers. Salaries continue to escalate to the point that some teams can keep the high priced players and some can’t. In a stunning move by what has been for years the most popular sport in America, Commissioner Roger Goodell announces that he will be contracting four teams.
In Major League Baseball, Hank Steinbrenner wins his argument and in an amazing turn of events, the owners are no longer forced to pay a luxury tax on their high payrolls or share revenues with the less fortunate teams. After a Cinderella run to the ALCS, the Kansas City Royals (who have a nice trim $15 million payroll) lose to the monstrosity that is the Yankees (with their $400 million payroll) and the Yankees go on to win yet another World Series. Admitting that eliminating the luxury tax was a terrible idea, the commissioner of baseball decides to contract four teams in an attempt to level the playing field.
There is one other solution other than contraction and that would be moving the teams to markets that will actually support a professional franchise. However, in this day and age of being able to choose any one of dozens of leisure activities, how many franchises can these major markets support? New York currently has seven teams and they all seem to prosper. Los Angeles has five with a glaring lack of an NFL team and again, they all seem to be well supported. Can other cities support that many teams?
Like I said, the solutions are all tied together but the roots of them all lead back to the same place.
The almighty dollar.
Money money everywhere and not a drop to drink
Ah, few things take me back quite like the poem based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”… anyway, enough nostalgia. At some point, the NFL Players Association and the NFL owners will sign a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. It might be sooner and it might be later (my better half is hoping for later… she tolerates me watching American Football of any kind). Between “The Decision” of LeBron James and “The Manipulation” of Carmelo Anthony, the hard line taken by the NFL owners, and the sounding of Hank Steinbrenner, I think that there is a larger issue that is troubling all of the major professional leagues in North America. In the interest of full disclosure, I did feel the need to say North America instead of the United States because of the 8 teams (out of 122) that reside north of the border.
So what is the larger issue? That millionaires and billionaires can’t agree over who gets the money? I hate to be so blunt about it but if you are under the impression that this problem is a new one to the economic model of this country, you’ve obviously been living under a rock for the past few decades. What is the solution? Nationalize the whole industry? While that might be the answer for some problems, it is not the answer for this one (although it would probably help reduce the deficit significantly).
What I’d like to do is examine each sport and see where they stand with regards to the specific issues which are plaguing them publicly. I don’t delve into the inner workings of professional sporting leagues and it’s entirely possible that the biggest problem facing each league isn’t the one I mention. However, these are the issues that are getting the most play in the press and it’s there that I will focus this post.
Before we get into it, I have to apologize to all of you hockey fans out there. I don’t understand hockey and the only time in my life that I’ve ever watched a hockey game from start to finish was the 2010 gold medal game. Having said that, I don’t know what is plaguing the league other than the fact that it’s getting closer and closer to being replaced as a member of the “Big 4” club by NASCAR. I don’t follow hockey and I still say that would be a sad day.
NBA
Last summer we were bombarded by “The Decision”. Starting last year and going almost all the way up to the trade deadline this year we were treated to “The Manipulation”. The big picture issue is whether or not superstars should team up and form these trios in an attempt to win with three stars and ten role players. Many say that it started with Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett being traded to the Celtics to team up with Paul Pierce and has continued today with the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks (and you could probably throw the Lakers in there… especially if the rumors are true and Dwight Howard ends up there soon). The question is, is this good for the league?
I’ve heard and read about many former players that are condemning these actions, saying that they would rather beat the best than play with the best and I completely understand this mentality. However, how many titles did LeBron James win in Cleveland as the lone superstar? How about Dwayne Wade in Miami? How about Kobe Bryant in LA?
In this day and age, the titles follow the superstars and while that last example may not quite hold water (Kobe) that would depend entirely on your definition of superstar. While I personally would not put Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom into that category, I also don’t think they’re that far off.
Going back further, how many titles did David Robinson win as the dominant inside force he was before Tim Duncan came along? How many did Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett combine for before they teamed up?
As I’m sure you can guess the answer to all those questions is zero. One player can’t take a team all the way in the NBA today and I would argue that the same has been true throughout the history of the NBA. In 1997, a panel consisting of members of the media, former players and coaches, and former and current front office members selected the greatest 50 players from the first fifty years of NBA history. By the logic exhibited by several former players, you would never want to team up with those guys; you would want to beat those guys. Of those 50, only 4 never played with another member of the exclusive club.
George Mikan
Bob Petit
Isaiah Thomas
Patrick Ewing
Another noteworthy factoid from that list; only once has a team has had five players that ended up being named one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players ever playing on the same team. They were:
1973-74 New York Knicks
Willis Reed
Walt Frazier
Dave DeBusschere
Jerry Lucas
Earl Monroe
Considering that Mikan and Petit played in an era where there were so few good players, much less stars, I think we can safely exclude their combined 6 championships from this discussion. Thomas and Ewing combined to play 30 seasons in the NBA and won two titles (both by Thomas). At that time the Lakers and Celtics dynasties of the ‘80’s were winding down and the Bulls weren’t quite ready for the spotlight yet, leaving a perfect void for a very good and tough team led by one great player.
I fully understand that very few of the players on that list manipulated their way from one team to another or staged an hour long primetime special to say nine words but the fact remains that championship teams have always formed around the combination of great players with role players filling in the gaps.
So what is the harm with great young players wanting to team up in an attempt to win a championship? If they don’t care about winning and only want to set records and make money, they can easily go to a team like Cleveland or the Clippers, make $20 million a season and get the lion’s share of the ball. Instead, you have three young superstars in James, Wade, and Bosh who are all willing to take a slightly diminished role in order to play with one another. That, in this day and age of prima donnas, isn’t such a bad trait.
The problem I have is not that they wanted to team up, it’s how they did it; through the media. Carmelo Anthony very publicly wanted out and that drastically reduced Denver’s leverage in the trade negotiations as teams knew they were desperate to get something back for him. On the other hand, LeBron James wrangled a three ring circus and then left the Cavaliers with nothing.
Now you have the formation of an aristocratic class of teams in the NBA, the Heat, Celtics, Knicks, Lakers, and Spurs with the Bulls and Mavericks close behind, while the rest of the league is left high and dry.
Is there a solution? Yes.
Will the owners like it? No.
Why? The almighty dollar.
THE NFL
Whenever it comes to labor renegotiations in professional sports, you have to maintain some semblance of perspective. According to figures researched by Plunkett Research, LTD (a firm that looks into industry trends, statistics, and analysis of top companies) the NFL produced $7.8 billion in total revenue last year. The numbers vary slightly from year to year but the exact numbers aren’t really necessary; ballpark figures will suffice. Under the current collective bargaining agreement (hereafter abbreviated CBA) the owners take $1 billion off the top of that number to distribute amongst themselves. After that, it goes into a pool that is shared by the owners and players. Under the current agreement (if my memory serves me this today) the players cut of that is 60%. If we assume that revenue figure is accurate, that comes out to $4.08 billion that goes to the players, both past and present.
However, the owners are shrewd businessmen and like more zeroes in their bank accounts. They want to take another billion off the top before the revenue sharing kicks in. With these figures, the owners’ share of the pie would go from $3.72 billion to $4.32 billion. If we were to simply spread the remainder of the pie amongst the roughly 1,600 NFL players and we were to ignore things like pension plans, then the average salary in the NFL would drop 14.7% from $2.55 million to $2.18 million.
Again, we have a situation where millionaires are arguing with billionaires over a very large, lucrative pie. I’ll admit that there are certain issues that the owners have (such as a rookie salary wage) that make a lot of sense. However, trimming another 13% of their leagues revenues out for themselves is nothing short of ridiculous. The problem is it’s entirely possible that they’ll get it.
MLB
Is the league’s business model straying towards socialism? Perhaps, a little but I don’t have any problem with that. What I do have a problem with is teams like the Yankees and Red Sox paying vast amounts of money that eventually ends up in the hands of teams that simply deposit it in their bank accounts. The entire point of the revenue sharing agreement was for teams who didn’t play in a market that could justify a $100 million payroll (Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Tampa Bay) to have a $100 million payroll and compete directly with the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox.
First of all, I’m not suggesting that every team should be spending $100 million on its 25 man roster. However, it’s difficult to call the Yankees and Red Sox the problem when the Pirates have spent less money in the last five years (while posting a 321-488 record) than the Yankees did to go 95-67 this past year.
What is the solution? A salary cap? The problem with a cap of any kind is the players don’t want anything to do with it and the player’s union is the strongest of any of the Big 4 sports (in my opinion). What’s another solution?
What are the solutions to these problems?
ARE THERE SOLUTIONS?
All of them center on the almighty dollar. Everyone wants more money and they want to sacrifice less and less to the guys on the other side of the bargaining table. On top of that, none of the parties that are actually doing the bargaining (the player’s rep and the commissioner) want to appear weak by giving too much or else they’ll be out of a job very quickly and you must remember that these are not minimum wage jobs.
All of these problems are easy to solve one of two ways (though really it just ends up as one big problem) as long as you don’t include the players in the decision making process… or the owners for that matter.
In the NBA, eliminate the salary structure that is now in place. How much help will that provide with regards to keeping players in smaller markets? Quite a bit. The difference right now between a max contract in Miami and a max contract in Cleveland is one additional year. The Average Annual Salary (AAS from now on) remains roughly the same. Now imagine that the Cavaliers were able to offer a contract worth an additional $10 million per season… or $20 million. Would that be enough to offset the desire to go to more tourist friendly cities? Absolutely, but here comes the problem… payrolls explode and now, the Cavaliers can’t afford that kind of payroll and neither can the Clippers or the Kings or the Nets. Finally, after much consternation and realizing that all the great players end up in big markets anyway, the NBA eliminates four teams.
In the NFL, the player’s union records some landmark deals in order to secure more of the revenue pie for active players but also much more for retired players and the NFL owners are exposed as the 19th century businessmen that many of them are, putting profits ahead of the well-being of the workers. Salaries continue to escalate to the point that some teams can keep the high priced players and some can’t. In a stunning move by what has been for years the most popular sport in America, Commissioner Roger Goodell announces that he will be contracting four teams.
In Major League Baseball, Hank Steinbrenner wins his argument and in an amazing turn of events, the owners are no longer forced to pay a luxury tax on their high payrolls or share revenues with the less fortunate teams. After a Cinderella run to the ALCS, the Kansas City Royals (who have a nice trim $15 million payroll) lose to the monstrosity that is the Yankees (with their $400 million payroll) and the Yankees go on to win yet another World Series. Admitting that eliminating the luxury tax was a terrible idea, the commissioner of baseball decides to contract four teams in an attempt to level the playing field.
There is one other solution other than contraction and that would be moving the teams to markets that will actually support a professional franchise. However, in this day and age of being able to choose any one of dozens of leisure activities, how many franchises can these major markets support? New York currently has seven teams and they all seem to prosper. Los Angeles has five with a glaring lack of an NFL team and again, they all seem to be well supported. Can other cities support that many teams?
Like I said, the solutions are all tied together but the roots of them all lead back to the same place.
The almighty dollar.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Salary Structure in Major League Baseball
In light of the fact that we might be within a year of having the upper end of the salary scale in Major League Baseball redefined, I wanted to throw out two statements. The point of these statements is to get you in the right frame of mind for the numbers that I’m going to be throwing at you.
The salary structure in Major League Baseball is absurdly out of hand.
A salary cap would go a long ways to helping fix MLB’s salary problem.
THE NUMBERS
In 2001, Major League Baseball teams spent $1.66 billion on payroll and in 2009 the teams spent $2.23 billion, an increase of 34.2%. Considering that this represents an increase in average team payroll from $55.4 million up to $74.4 million, it doesn’t really sound like an extraordinary increase. However, when its compared with the Consumer Price Index, one of the most commonly used tools to measure inflation, that rate of payroll increase is well over the increase in the CPI (20.6%).
Does this mean that MLB salaries are getting too high? Not necessarily. Over the same time period, NFL payrolls have increased by 55.7% while NBA payrolls have gone up 69.8%. The difference between Major League Baseball and those other two leagues is that they have a salary cap while baseball does not. So why then are their payrolls numbers rising faster than the league that has no salary cap?
Is it because revenue streams are better in the NFL and the NBA? Not really. Major League Baseball has had record setting revenues the past few years. Is it because of labor uncertainty that has caused baseball owners to be more reluctant to hand out dollars to players? Nope. In fact, Major League Baseball is the only of these three leagues that is not heading into uncertain waters with regards to labor negotiations between the players and the owners. It is entirely possible that the dramatic rise in payrolls figures in the NBA and NFL are contributing to their current labor situations.
Basically what all of that says is that if the Major League Baseball salaries are rising at alarming rates, then salaries in the NFL and NBA are rising at an even more alarming rate. So then the question becomes whether or not there is any truth to the first statement above and most of that answer depends on what your definition of “absurdly out of hand” is.
In that case, why have salaries been in the news so much in the past few years? Well, a lot of it has to do with the Yankees and other than that, it mostly has to do with the high profile signings of the past few years. Joe Mauer, Ryan Howard, Matt Holliday, Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, and Troy Tulowitzki are just a few of the players who have signed contracts or contract extensions worth an amount in excess of $100 million. On top of that, three high profile players are going to sign very large contracts within the next year; Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, and the man who will be resetting the curve when it comes to large contracts, Albert Pujols.
Maybe this is the question we should be asking. Overall payrolls in Major League Baseball have been climbing at a much steadier rate through the past ten years than those of the NBA or the NFL. However, the higher end of MLB contracts has skyrocketed to the point where the highest paid player now makes roughly ten times the league average. Is the payroll situation in baseball getting its reputation because of the aristocratic class of players that are getting paid much more than the league average?
FORMATION OF AN ARISTOCRACY?
In 1997, Albert Belle became the first player to earn $10 million in a single season and he earned exactly that amount. In 2010, 79 different players were paid at least $10 million and Alex Rodriguez was paid more than triple that amount ($33 million). Over that time period, the overall salary figure in MLB has jumped from $969 million to $2.61 billion, an increase of 169.5%.
That’s great and all but the active roster of a Major League Baseball team is 25 players and if we assume that as many as 8 or 9 players get included into the payroll numbers, that still gives us a pool of roughly 1,000 players. If only 8% of players are earning that amount of money, can it really skew the payroll numbers that much? The answer is absolutely.
If we assume that there is a pool of 1,000 players that go into baseball-reference.com’s payroll numbers that means that 999 players earned less than $10 million in 1997 and that number shrunk to 921 by last year. In the past 14 years, the amount of money paid to those players has gone up from $959 million up to $1.46 billion. This represents an increase of just 52.7%, far below the overall increase.
Here’s the amazing part. Last year, the 79 players who earned over $10 million were paid a grand total of $1.15 billion, or 43.9% of the total money paid out in salaries. In 1997, that was just 1.03%.
An aristocracy is a system of government where the power is consolidated amongst a few of the citizens. If the question is whether or not a sort of aristocratic class has developed in Major League Baseball, the answer is an emphatic yes. If there is a problem with the salary structure in baseball, it lies in the fact that the top 8% of wage earners are earning 44% of the money being paid to players.
Is a salary cap a solution to this “problem”? The problem with imposing a salary cap on Major League Baseball is that it provides no disincentive to teams wanting to sign a player to a contract worth $20 million per season. Teams will simply start paying one player that much money and the rest of the roster will be filled with players somewhere on the lower end of the payroll spectrum. If they want to reduce the salaries of the top tier of players, they would need to institute rules in the collective bargaining agreement limiting the maximum size of a contract a player can sign, much like the NBA. Being the highest paid player in the NBA isn’t that big of a deal anymore because the amount of money the top tier of players are getting paid is all the result of an equation based on how long they’ve been in the league.
CONCLUSION
Does the salary structure in baseball need fixing? In my opinion, it does not. Teams that have enormous revenue streams from ticket sales, merchandise sales, advertising, and broadcasting contracts can spend whatever they want on a team. However, if they spend too much too often, they have to pay the luxury tax which goes to teams that do not have the type of revenue streams that the Yankees and Red Sox have.
This system works for baseball and would not work as well for the NBA or the NFL. In the NBA if you have the best player at every position, you’re probably going to win 75 games and win the NBA title. If you have the best player at every position in the NFL, you’ll win 14-15 games every year and play in the Super Bowl more years than not. If you have the best player at every position in baseball, it will give you an excellent shot at the playoffs every year but not necessarily the World Series. From 1996-2001, it can be argued that the Yankees didn’t have one player on their roster that could be considered the best at his position and they won four World Series title in those six years and played in another. Baseball is all about having good players at every position with as few holes as possible. In other words, no matter how much money you spend on putting together the best roster in the history of baseball, it still doesn’t guarantee you a World Series title.
For all of you out there who think the system is broken and a salary cap is necessary, don’t forget that in the last ten years, only one team with the highest payroll in baseball has won the World Series (the 2009 Yankees).
The system isn’t broken, it just might need a tweak or two…
The salary structure in Major League Baseball is absurdly out of hand.
A salary cap would go a long ways to helping fix MLB’s salary problem.
THE NUMBERS
In 2001, Major League Baseball teams spent $1.66 billion on payroll and in 2009 the teams spent $2.23 billion, an increase of 34.2%. Considering that this represents an increase in average team payroll from $55.4 million up to $74.4 million, it doesn’t really sound like an extraordinary increase. However, when its compared with the Consumer Price Index, one of the most commonly used tools to measure inflation, that rate of payroll increase is well over the increase in the CPI (20.6%).
Does this mean that MLB salaries are getting too high? Not necessarily. Over the same time period, NFL payrolls have increased by 55.7% while NBA payrolls have gone up 69.8%. The difference between Major League Baseball and those other two leagues is that they have a salary cap while baseball does not. So why then are their payrolls numbers rising faster than the league that has no salary cap?
Is it because revenue streams are better in the NFL and the NBA? Not really. Major League Baseball has had record setting revenues the past few years. Is it because of labor uncertainty that has caused baseball owners to be more reluctant to hand out dollars to players? Nope. In fact, Major League Baseball is the only of these three leagues that is not heading into uncertain waters with regards to labor negotiations between the players and the owners. It is entirely possible that the dramatic rise in payrolls figures in the NBA and NFL are contributing to their current labor situations.
Basically what all of that says is that if the Major League Baseball salaries are rising at alarming rates, then salaries in the NFL and NBA are rising at an even more alarming rate. So then the question becomes whether or not there is any truth to the first statement above and most of that answer depends on what your definition of “absurdly out of hand” is.
In that case, why have salaries been in the news so much in the past few years? Well, a lot of it has to do with the Yankees and other than that, it mostly has to do with the high profile signings of the past few years. Joe Mauer, Ryan Howard, Matt Holliday, Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, and Troy Tulowitzki are just a few of the players who have signed contracts or contract extensions worth an amount in excess of $100 million. On top of that, three high profile players are going to sign very large contracts within the next year; Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, and the man who will be resetting the curve when it comes to large contracts, Albert Pujols.
Maybe this is the question we should be asking. Overall payrolls in Major League Baseball have been climbing at a much steadier rate through the past ten years than those of the NBA or the NFL. However, the higher end of MLB contracts has skyrocketed to the point where the highest paid player now makes roughly ten times the league average. Is the payroll situation in baseball getting its reputation because of the aristocratic class of players that are getting paid much more than the league average?
FORMATION OF AN ARISTOCRACY?
In 1997, Albert Belle became the first player to earn $10 million in a single season and he earned exactly that amount. In 2010, 79 different players were paid at least $10 million and Alex Rodriguez was paid more than triple that amount ($33 million). Over that time period, the overall salary figure in MLB has jumped from $969 million to $2.61 billion, an increase of 169.5%.
That’s great and all but the active roster of a Major League Baseball team is 25 players and if we assume that as many as 8 or 9 players get included into the payroll numbers, that still gives us a pool of roughly 1,000 players. If only 8% of players are earning that amount of money, can it really skew the payroll numbers that much? The answer is absolutely.
If we assume that there is a pool of 1,000 players that go into baseball-reference.com’s payroll numbers that means that 999 players earned less than $10 million in 1997 and that number shrunk to 921 by last year. In the past 14 years, the amount of money paid to those players has gone up from $959 million up to $1.46 billion. This represents an increase of just 52.7%, far below the overall increase.
Here’s the amazing part. Last year, the 79 players who earned over $10 million were paid a grand total of $1.15 billion, or 43.9% of the total money paid out in salaries. In 1997, that was just 1.03%.
An aristocracy is a system of government where the power is consolidated amongst a few of the citizens. If the question is whether or not a sort of aristocratic class has developed in Major League Baseball, the answer is an emphatic yes. If there is a problem with the salary structure in baseball, it lies in the fact that the top 8% of wage earners are earning 44% of the money being paid to players.
Is a salary cap a solution to this “problem”? The problem with imposing a salary cap on Major League Baseball is that it provides no disincentive to teams wanting to sign a player to a contract worth $20 million per season. Teams will simply start paying one player that much money and the rest of the roster will be filled with players somewhere on the lower end of the payroll spectrum. If they want to reduce the salaries of the top tier of players, they would need to institute rules in the collective bargaining agreement limiting the maximum size of a contract a player can sign, much like the NBA. Being the highest paid player in the NBA isn’t that big of a deal anymore because the amount of money the top tier of players are getting paid is all the result of an equation based on how long they’ve been in the league.
CONCLUSION
Does the salary structure in baseball need fixing? In my opinion, it does not. Teams that have enormous revenue streams from ticket sales, merchandise sales, advertising, and broadcasting contracts can spend whatever they want on a team. However, if they spend too much too often, they have to pay the luxury tax which goes to teams that do not have the type of revenue streams that the Yankees and Red Sox have.
This system works for baseball and would not work as well for the NBA or the NFL. In the NBA if you have the best player at every position, you’re probably going to win 75 games and win the NBA title. If you have the best player at every position in the NFL, you’ll win 14-15 games every year and play in the Super Bowl more years than not. If you have the best player at every position in baseball, it will give you an excellent shot at the playoffs every year but not necessarily the World Series. From 1996-2001, it can be argued that the Yankees didn’t have one player on their roster that could be considered the best at his position and they won four World Series title in those six years and played in another. Baseball is all about having good players at every position with as few holes as possible. In other words, no matter how much money you spend on putting together the best roster in the history of baseball, it still doesn’t guarantee you a World Series title.
For all of you out there who think the system is broken and a salary cap is necessary, don’t forget that in the last ten years, only one team with the highest payroll in baseball has won the World Series (the 2009 Yankees).
The system isn’t broken, it just might need a tweak or two…
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Albert Pujols Saga
It's been a while since I've written in this space and the reason is quite simple. Between the Super Bowl and the beginning of the NCAA men's basketball tournament is one of the dullest times of the year when it comes to my sporting interests. I've had many ideas for posts rolling around my head but nothing seemed to stick... until this situation came about and then came to a head in the past week.
As any of you who have been paying attention already know, the deadline has passed. Unless the Albert Pujols camp changes their minds over the course of the next eight and a half months, he will become one of the most coveted free agents in the history of sports. Not just baseball, but all sports. It is very rare for a player of his talent and stature to become a free agent and for the most recent example in all sports; we only have to go back to the Decision. As far as baseball is concerned, Pujols will easily be the most coveted free agent since the winter of 2000 when Alex Rodriguez hit the free agent market with a career slash line of .309/.374/.561 and 189 home runs… at the age of 24.
So the questions on everybody’s mind are obvious.
First, what team will he sign with?
Second, how many zeroes will be on his new contract?
Lastly, will he be worth it to whoever makes history?
THE MONEY
In my opinion the second question is the easiest to answer. The most common numbers being kicked around are 10 years at an AAS (average annual salary) of $30 million, besting Alex Rodriguez’s record deal when he resigned with the Yankees a few winters ago. The thing that nobody knows outside of Pujols, his agent, and perhaps the Cardinals negotiating team, is how much higher Pujols wants to set the bar. Does he want $35 million per season? $40 million? Does he want a contract that will eventually make him a partial owner in a team, potentially worth much more than just the dollar value?
The one thing Pujols can’t do is overplay his hand. Granted, he’s going to have several suitors with extremely deep pockets but if he demands something truly ridiculous, I have a feeling that teams will tell him to take a hike. However, if the Yankees and Red Sox get into a true bidding war, it might be the final straw for the owners to start demanding that Major League Baseball take steps to help get player contracts back under control.
THE TEAM
This is where things get really tricky. He’s played 10 years for the St. Louis Cardinals and has become a hero to the city. In those years, he hasn’t said anything that could be construed as a complaint about the organization. Having said that, if he was willing to give the Cardinals any sort of home-town discount, I think he already would have signed an extension.
What other teams have a chance?
The Yankees and Red Sox certainly do because they both have the resources to offer Pujols anything he wants. Because of the money involved, I believe that those will be the three major players in these negotiations and if anyone else makes a play for Pujols, it’ll be someone unexpected.
So who has the best chance?
Right now my gut tells me that the Cardinals still have the inside track and after them, my money is on the Red Sox. They have a very modest sum of money invested in Adrian Gonzalez this year and then he becomes a free agent next winter. If they want to make a play for Albert Pujols, it would make perfect sense for them to either trade Gonzalez or simply let him play for a year and then let him leave in free agency. Either of those scenarios opens up first base and money for Pujols.
On the other hand, Mark Teixeira is two years into a 8 year, $180 million contract that includes a full no-trade clause. Pujols joining the Yankees would involve a position switch or trading Teixeira with the Yankees picking up a serious amount of the remaining $140 million left on his contract. Will they be willing to do that? If the Red Sox start gearing themselves for a serious run at Pujols and the Yankees fall short of the playoffs for the second time in three years, absolutely anything is possible.
In addition to the usual suspects, there are always teams like the Dodgers, Angels, Mets, and Cubs that could all throw more money at Pujols than anyone else offers. If nothing else, it’ll be entertaining.
THE VALUE
Before we delve too deep into the dollars and cents, I need to say a few words about the difference between Major League Baseball and the NBA and NFL. In those two leagues, players are paid largely based on their potential for the future and in baseball, they are paid for what they’ve done in the past with the high hopes that the players will replicate that success.
For instance, on July 30, 2010, Sam Bradford signed the richest contract for a rookie in NFL history. The contract is worth at least $50 million over 6 years with a maximum value of $86 million. All of this was before he had thrown a single pass in the NFL.
In his first three years with the St. Louis Cardinals, Albert Pujols had a slash line of .334/.412/.613, he hit 114 home runs and drove in 381 runs. He won a batting title and finished in the top four of MVP voting all three seasons. Lastly, Pujols was good for 23.6 WAR. In his first three seasons in a Cardinals’ uniform (2001-2003) 88 different players recorded at least 500 plate appearances in each of those three seasons. Only two bested Pujols’ mark of 23.6 WAR.
In those seasons, Barry Bonds earned $40.8 million.
Alex Rodriguez earned $66 million.
Albert Pujols earned $1.7 million.
So the point of that tangent is that in baseball, big contracts are handed out both for what a player has done as well as what a team hopes he will do.
THE NUMBERS
For the sake of argument, for this section we’re going to assume that Pujols signs for 10 years at $300 million. Will he be worth it? First of all, let’s talk about money that comes in from selling tickets. In 2009, teams drew an average of 2,447,686 people to their 81 home games and according to the Team Marketing Report, the average ticket price was $26.74. That means that in 2009 teams brought home an average of $65.5 million in ticket revenues.
If Albert Pujols were to sign and that was to increase ticket revenue by 10% (hardly an outrageous figure) that means that just with selling tickets, he’ll bring an extra $6.55 million to the average team. That doesn’t take into account the sales of concessions or the sales of merchandise which will spike as well.
There’s one flaw in that logic though; we’re not talking about the average franchise when we talk about the potential suitors for Pujols’ services. Now let’s examine the impact that he could have on the Yankees and Red Sox. Instead of average attendances of 2,447,686 and average prices of $26.74, the Red Sox had values of 3,062,699 and $50.24 while the Yankees had values of 3,719,358 and $72.97. instead of modest ticket revenues of $65.5 million, the Red Sox took in $153.8 million while the Yankees took in a ridiculous $271.4 million. Now imagine Pujols adding a potential 10% to those figures…
As far as the Red Sox and Yankees are concerned, the only real problems I see are a lack of flexibility with regards to their rosters and payroll and that the Yankees already have a high priced first baseman under contract for six more years.
Lastly, there is a very justified worry about giving a 31 year old player a 10 year contract worth this much money, especially given the long line of albatross type contracts that have hung around the necks of Major League franchises in the past… but have they?
There have been a grand total of 27 seasons in which a player earned more than $20 million. On average, they have produced 4.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement player), a very good mark, but not quite worth that much money. However, there is one interesting trend amongst those players. As a rule, they kept very similar value to what they had before earning such large paydays.
Those 27 seasons were recorded by 9 different players and 6 of them put forth increased production (according to their WAR value) compared to when they were making less than $20 million per season. One of those can very easily be thrown out because in his only season earning more than $20 million, Barry Bonds was injured and limited to only 52 plate appearance. Therefore, 75% of the players in this sample (which Pujols is about to join) increased their Wins Above Replacement after signing their huge paydays.
Considering that Pujols has averaged 8.38 WAR per season in the majors, the thought of him increasing that average is just downright scary.
PREDICTION
He’ll get his 10 year contract; I have no doubts. For money, my guess is $250-300 million in guaranteed money with incentives and potential ownership options worth anywhere from $25 million to $100 million more. I know, way to narrow it down, right?
The tricky question is where he’ll end up. Based on what happened this past offseason, I’m not sure that the Cardinals are looking to give him a record breaking contract and if that’s the case, he won’t be playing in St. Louis next year. If he leaves St. Louis, my best guess is that the Cubs will come up with the money to sign him but only after seriously outbidding the Yankees and Red Sox…
Either that or he takes a serious paycut to join the Mariners…
I can dream, can’t I?
As any of you who have been paying attention already know, the deadline has passed. Unless the Albert Pujols camp changes their minds over the course of the next eight and a half months, he will become one of the most coveted free agents in the history of sports. Not just baseball, but all sports. It is very rare for a player of his talent and stature to become a free agent and for the most recent example in all sports; we only have to go back to the Decision. As far as baseball is concerned, Pujols will easily be the most coveted free agent since the winter of 2000 when Alex Rodriguez hit the free agent market with a career slash line of .309/.374/.561 and 189 home runs… at the age of 24.
So the questions on everybody’s mind are obvious.
First, what team will he sign with?
Second, how many zeroes will be on his new contract?
Lastly, will he be worth it to whoever makes history?
THE MONEY
In my opinion the second question is the easiest to answer. The most common numbers being kicked around are 10 years at an AAS (average annual salary) of $30 million, besting Alex Rodriguez’s record deal when he resigned with the Yankees a few winters ago. The thing that nobody knows outside of Pujols, his agent, and perhaps the Cardinals negotiating team, is how much higher Pujols wants to set the bar. Does he want $35 million per season? $40 million? Does he want a contract that will eventually make him a partial owner in a team, potentially worth much more than just the dollar value?
The one thing Pujols can’t do is overplay his hand. Granted, he’s going to have several suitors with extremely deep pockets but if he demands something truly ridiculous, I have a feeling that teams will tell him to take a hike. However, if the Yankees and Red Sox get into a true bidding war, it might be the final straw for the owners to start demanding that Major League Baseball take steps to help get player contracts back under control.
THE TEAM
This is where things get really tricky. He’s played 10 years for the St. Louis Cardinals and has become a hero to the city. In those years, he hasn’t said anything that could be construed as a complaint about the organization. Having said that, if he was willing to give the Cardinals any sort of home-town discount, I think he already would have signed an extension.
What other teams have a chance?
The Yankees and Red Sox certainly do because they both have the resources to offer Pujols anything he wants. Because of the money involved, I believe that those will be the three major players in these negotiations and if anyone else makes a play for Pujols, it’ll be someone unexpected.
So who has the best chance?
Right now my gut tells me that the Cardinals still have the inside track and after them, my money is on the Red Sox. They have a very modest sum of money invested in Adrian Gonzalez this year and then he becomes a free agent next winter. If they want to make a play for Albert Pujols, it would make perfect sense for them to either trade Gonzalez or simply let him play for a year and then let him leave in free agency. Either of those scenarios opens up first base and money for Pujols.
On the other hand, Mark Teixeira is two years into a 8 year, $180 million contract that includes a full no-trade clause. Pujols joining the Yankees would involve a position switch or trading Teixeira with the Yankees picking up a serious amount of the remaining $140 million left on his contract. Will they be willing to do that? If the Red Sox start gearing themselves for a serious run at Pujols and the Yankees fall short of the playoffs for the second time in three years, absolutely anything is possible.
In addition to the usual suspects, there are always teams like the Dodgers, Angels, Mets, and Cubs that could all throw more money at Pujols than anyone else offers. If nothing else, it’ll be entertaining.
THE VALUE
Before we delve too deep into the dollars and cents, I need to say a few words about the difference between Major League Baseball and the NBA and NFL. In those two leagues, players are paid largely based on their potential for the future and in baseball, they are paid for what they’ve done in the past with the high hopes that the players will replicate that success.
For instance, on July 30, 2010, Sam Bradford signed the richest contract for a rookie in NFL history. The contract is worth at least $50 million over 6 years with a maximum value of $86 million. All of this was before he had thrown a single pass in the NFL.
In his first three years with the St. Louis Cardinals, Albert Pujols had a slash line of .334/.412/.613, he hit 114 home runs and drove in 381 runs. He won a batting title and finished in the top four of MVP voting all three seasons. Lastly, Pujols was good for 23.6 WAR. In his first three seasons in a Cardinals’ uniform (2001-2003) 88 different players recorded at least 500 plate appearances in each of those three seasons. Only two bested Pujols’ mark of 23.6 WAR.
In those seasons, Barry Bonds earned $40.8 million.
Alex Rodriguez earned $66 million.
Albert Pujols earned $1.7 million.
So the point of that tangent is that in baseball, big contracts are handed out both for what a player has done as well as what a team hopes he will do.
THE NUMBERS
For the sake of argument, for this section we’re going to assume that Pujols signs for 10 years at $300 million. Will he be worth it? First of all, let’s talk about money that comes in from selling tickets. In 2009, teams drew an average of 2,447,686 people to their 81 home games and according to the Team Marketing Report, the average ticket price was $26.74. That means that in 2009 teams brought home an average of $65.5 million in ticket revenues.
If Albert Pujols were to sign and that was to increase ticket revenue by 10% (hardly an outrageous figure) that means that just with selling tickets, he’ll bring an extra $6.55 million to the average team. That doesn’t take into account the sales of concessions or the sales of merchandise which will spike as well.
There’s one flaw in that logic though; we’re not talking about the average franchise when we talk about the potential suitors for Pujols’ services. Now let’s examine the impact that he could have on the Yankees and Red Sox. Instead of average attendances of 2,447,686 and average prices of $26.74, the Red Sox had values of 3,062,699 and $50.24 while the Yankees had values of 3,719,358 and $72.97. instead of modest ticket revenues of $65.5 million, the Red Sox took in $153.8 million while the Yankees took in a ridiculous $271.4 million. Now imagine Pujols adding a potential 10% to those figures…
As far as the Red Sox and Yankees are concerned, the only real problems I see are a lack of flexibility with regards to their rosters and payroll and that the Yankees already have a high priced first baseman under contract for six more years.
Lastly, there is a very justified worry about giving a 31 year old player a 10 year contract worth this much money, especially given the long line of albatross type contracts that have hung around the necks of Major League franchises in the past… but have they?
There have been a grand total of 27 seasons in which a player earned more than $20 million. On average, they have produced 4.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement player), a very good mark, but not quite worth that much money. However, there is one interesting trend amongst those players. As a rule, they kept very similar value to what they had before earning such large paydays.
Those 27 seasons were recorded by 9 different players and 6 of them put forth increased production (according to their WAR value) compared to when they were making less than $20 million per season. One of those can very easily be thrown out because in his only season earning more than $20 million, Barry Bonds was injured and limited to only 52 plate appearance. Therefore, 75% of the players in this sample (which Pujols is about to join) increased their Wins Above Replacement after signing their huge paydays.
Considering that Pujols has averaged 8.38 WAR per season in the majors, the thought of him increasing that average is just downright scary.
PREDICTION
He’ll get his 10 year contract; I have no doubts. For money, my guess is $250-300 million in guaranteed money with incentives and potential ownership options worth anywhere from $25 million to $100 million more. I know, way to narrow it down, right?
The tricky question is where he’ll end up. Based on what happened this past offseason, I’m not sure that the Cardinals are looking to give him a record breaking contract and if that’s the case, he won’t be playing in St. Louis next year. If he leaves St. Louis, my best guess is that the Cubs will come up with the money to sign him but only after seriously outbidding the Yankees and Red Sox…
Either that or he takes a serious paycut to join the Mariners…
I can dream, can’t I?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
BCS Recap 2011
The college football season has been over for several days now and if you’re anything like me, you’re going through some serious FBS withdrawals. So in order to help you (and me) cope, I’m going to go through the winners and losers from this year’s BCS season (while flitting briefly back into the rest of the bowl season).
I was very surprised when I was making these lists how many teams and conferences ended up on both sides. This year I’m going to lump them together into the “Bittersweet” category. Without any further delay, let’s jump right in with the losers of this year’s BCS season.
LOSERS
E. GORDON GEE
The president of The Ohio State University put his foot in his mouth a while ago by saying that, all else being equal, non-AQ schools don’t deserve BCS berths and most of his reasoning was based on relative strength of schedule. As he infamously quipped, “we do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor.”
Ohio State finished the season 12-1 after a Sugar Bowl win against Arkansas. That one loss came to Wisconsin by a score of 31-18. TCU, who clearly made it to the BCS on the backs of weakling opponents, was blown out by Wiscon-…
Wait, they won? They held the Badgers juggernaut offense to 19 points when Ohio State couldn’t hold them under 30?
The same trend that has made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament so much fun is starting to creep into college football as well. The fact of the matter is that there are too many good coaches and too many good players at the FBS level and because of that, it’s no longer inconceivable that the best team in the country comes from the Mountain West or the WAC. Do they play weaker opponents? Yes. Does that necessarily mean that they are not better teams?
Just check the final BCS and AP polls of the season. Nevada was ranked 11th, Boise State 9th, and only one team ended up ranked higher than TCU.
To all of you traditional power people spewing garbage about how the little guys don’t belong on the same field as you, I offer this challenge. Get on the field and prove it. If you want to make them go away, go into their house and dominate. Until then, just shut up.
THE BIG TEN CONFERENCE
Not only did Wisconsin lose in the Rose Bowl to TCU, but Ohio State followed up their brilliant first half with a shoddy at best second half in the Sugar Bowl to eke out a win. The Buckeyes desperately needed an interception after allowing the Razorbacks to block a punt and recover the ball deep in OSU territory with a minute left.
Before the BCS kicked off, Iowa beat Missouri, Illinois beat Baylor, and Kansas State lost a close one to Syracuse on a controversial penalty.
Then Penn State lost to Florida 37-24. That’s not too bad, it was Urban Meyer’s last game so they were obviously jacked up for the game. But then Michigan and BCS contender Michigan State combined to lose by a score of 101-21.
All in all, the Big Ten finished 3-5 in their bowl games but just 1-3 against the mighty SEC and it very well could have been 0-4 were it not for the Buckeyes stout defense. They have a long way to go before being considered one of the best conferences in the country.
WINNERS
PAC-10
Despite losing the BCS National Championship Game, the Pac-10 turned a lot of heads this postseason. People were harping on the conference when they only had 4 teams that were bowl eligible at the end of the season (although USC being ineligible isn’t exactly the conference’s fault; the Trojans did finish 8-5) and it didn’t start well when Oklahoma State put a hurting on Arizona 36-10.
At that point there was a sentiment that the Pac-10 might go 0-4 in those bowls. After all, Oregon was matched up against Auburn of the mighty SEC for the title, Stanford was going up against a tough Virginia Tech team that had won 11 in a row and Washington was playing the same Nebraska team that went up to Seattle and crushed the Huskies 56-21 just a few short weeks ago.
Washington 19, #18 Nebraska 7
#4 Stanford 40, #13 Virginia Tech 12
At this point, I thought that the Pac-10 had done enough to be considered a “winner” in the bowl season. Then Oregon went out and allowed Auburn the second fewest points of their championship season and they never trailed by more than 8 points. Considering that the margins of victory in the SEC’s previous four BCS title games were 27, 14, 10, and 16 (and truth be told, only Florida’s 24-14 win over Oklahoma was as close as the final score would indicate) staying within a touchdown of the best the SEC had to offer was a good accomplishment for the Ducks.
SEC
Five consecutive BCS titles that have gone to four different schools. I may be a big fan of the Pac-10 and not a huge fan of the SEC but I am not deluded enough to say that any conference is anywhere close to as good as the SEC right now. Despite the fact that the conference went 5-5 in their bowl games and couldn’t even sweep their two BCS appearances, they did nothing to dispel the sentiment that they are the best conference.
To everyone else out there, if you want SEC fans, players, coaches, university personnel, and analysts to stop talking about the SEC’s dominance, beat them. Until then, live with it.
BITTERSWEET
I decided to create this category this season because it seemed that there were a large group of people that had ups this bowl season that weren’t without the downs and for our first entrant, we look no farther than our newly anointed national champions.
AUBURN
Enjoy it while it lasts Tiger fans.
Cam Newton has declared for the NFL draft and perhaps more importantly, game-changing defensive tackle Nick Fairley has also decided to go pro. On the strength of those two players and what they did this season, I am almost willing to say right now that next year is looking like an 8 or 9 win season for Auburn. Congratulations on a national championship but I’ll put good money on them not repeating.
NON-AQ
TCU got to the Rose Bowl, played a big time AQ opponent and beat them without resorting to “trick” plays. They played a very straightforward game and they beat the Badgers straight up. With this signature win being exactly what the non-AQ teams have wanted forever, what could possibly land them in this category?
The non-AQ conferences ended the season with 6 teams ranked in the BCS Top 25. They were:
#3 TCU
#10 Boise State
#15 Nevada
#19 Utah
#24 Hawaii
#25 UCF
Unfortunately, Boise State was never considered for an at-large selection to a BCS bowl. Of course, say the detractors, they lost to a conference opponent in the WAC! They lost by a field goal on the road at a ranked team. How many other teams in the country would have dropped from 4th to 11th in one week when losing to a ranked team on the road?
The search for respect continues…
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
They ended their famous drought where they had never beaten an SEC team in a bowl game and played one of the best halves of football in any BCS game (topped, if at all, only by Stanford’s second half against Virginia Tech). In the second half, they almost looked disinterested on offense, scoring just 3 points and allowing the Razorbacks to chip away at their lead slowly but surely.
On top of that, the only reason that the players who sold memorabilia were allowed to play is if they committed to Coach Jim Tressel that they would come back to school next year and serve their suspensions. I personally don’t think they should have been allowed to play in this game but they were nonetheless and as a further ramification, the Buckeyes will need some extraordinary play from the guys replacing these players to compete for another BCS berth next year.
The last thing I want to mention about the 2010-2011 bowl season is the controversy that threatened to derail the magical season of Auburn this year and if Cam Newton knew anything about it, that magical season deserved to be derailed. I’m not going to say that I wish he had been declared ineligible (and more importantly, not reinstated) or that the Oregon Ducks got cheated out of a national championship.
As I have said before in this space specifically in reference to the Reggie Bush situation with USC, history happened, we can’t change it. Did Cam Newton deserve the Heisman this year? Absolutely. Did Auburn deserve to win the national title? Without a doubt; while I still think that Oregon was the slightly better team and would win maybe 53 out of 100 games, on this day, Auburn was hands down the better team… just by a little bit.
All that I don’t want to see is evidence that Cam Newton knew about the “pay-for-play” scheme during his time at Auburn. It cheapens everything Auburn did this year and if that is the case, then yes, Oregon got screwed a bit just like Oklahoma (and one could argue, Auburn) a few years ago by Reggie Bush.
I hope nothing comes out and I hope that he is telling the truth even though I was pulling for the Ducks. I like to see my teams win but above that, I like to see good clean football and this year’s national championship game was exactly that… assuming Newton was eligible.
I hope you enjoyed the FBS season this year as much as I did and I can’t wait to write more about it next year. However, it is that time once again to shift my focus to the NFL, then the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and eventually Major League Baseball.
Until next time…
I was very surprised when I was making these lists how many teams and conferences ended up on both sides. This year I’m going to lump them together into the “Bittersweet” category. Without any further delay, let’s jump right in with the losers of this year’s BCS season.
LOSERS
E. GORDON GEE
The president of The Ohio State University put his foot in his mouth a while ago by saying that, all else being equal, non-AQ schools don’t deserve BCS berths and most of his reasoning was based on relative strength of schedule. As he infamously quipped, “we do not play the Little Sisters of the Poor.”
Ohio State finished the season 12-1 after a Sugar Bowl win against Arkansas. That one loss came to Wisconsin by a score of 31-18. TCU, who clearly made it to the BCS on the backs of weakling opponents, was blown out by Wiscon-…
Wait, they won? They held the Badgers juggernaut offense to 19 points when Ohio State couldn’t hold them under 30?
The same trend that has made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament so much fun is starting to creep into college football as well. The fact of the matter is that there are too many good coaches and too many good players at the FBS level and because of that, it’s no longer inconceivable that the best team in the country comes from the Mountain West or the WAC. Do they play weaker opponents? Yes. Does that necessarily mean that they are not better teams?
Just check the final BCS and AP polls of the season. Nevada was ranked 11th, Boise State 9th, and only one team ended up ranked higher than TCU.
To all of you traditional power people spewing garbage about how the little guys don’t belong on the same field as you, I offer this challenge. Get on the field and prove it. If you want to make them go away, go into their house and dominate. Until then, just shut up.
THE BIG TEN CONFERENCE
Not only did Wisconsin lose in the Rose Bowl to TCU, but Ohio State followed up their brilliant first half with a shoddy at best second half in the Sugar Bowl to eke out a win. The Buckeyes desperately needed an interception after allowing the Razorbacks to block a punt and recover the ball deep in OSU territory with a minute left.
Before the BCS kicked off, Iowa beat Missouri, Illinois beat Baylor, and Kansas State lost a close one to Syracuse on a controversial penalty.
Then Penn State lost to Florida 37-24. That’s not too bad, it was Urban Meyer’s last game so they were obviously jacked up for the game. But then Michigan and BCS contender Michigan State combined to lose by a score of 101-21.
All in all, the Big Ten finished 3-5 in their bowl games but just 1-3 against the mighty SEC and it very well could have been 0-4 were it not for the Buckeyes stout defense. They have a long way to go before being considered one of the best conferences in the country.
WINNERS
PAC-10
Despite losing the BCS National Championship Game, the Pac-10 turned a lot of heads this postseason. People were harping on the conference when they only had 4 teams that were bowl eligible at the end of the season (although USC being ineligible isn’t exactly the conference’s fault; the Trojans did finish 8-5) and it didn’t start well when Oklahoma State put a hurting on Arizona 36-10.
At that point there was a sentiment that the Pac-10 might go 0-4 in those bowls. After all, Oregon was matched up against Auburn of the mighty SEC for the title, Stanford was going up against a tough Virginia Tech team that had won 11 in a row and Washington was playing the same Nebraska team that went up to Seattle and crushed the Huskies 56-21 just a few short weeks ago.
Washington 19, #18 Nebraska 7
#4 Stanford 40, #13 Virginia Tech 12
At this point, I thought that the Pac-10 had done enough to be considered a “winner” in the bowl season. Then Oregon went out and allowed Auburn the second fewest points of their championship season and they never trailed by more than 8 points. Considering that the margins of victory in the SEC’s previous four BCS title games were 27, 14, 10, and 16 (and truth be told, only Florida’s 24-14 win over Oklahoma was as close as the final score would indicate) staying within a touchdown of the best the SEC had to offer was a good accomplishment for the Ducks.
SEC
Five consecutive BCS titles that have gone to four different schools. I may be a big fan of the Pac-10 and not a huge fan of the SEC but I am not deluded enough to say that any conference is anywhere close to as good as the SEC right now. Despite the fact that the conference went 5-5 in their bowl games and couldn’t even sweep their two BCS appearances, they did nothing to dispel the sentiment that they are the best conference.
To everyone else out there, if you want SEC fans, players, coaches, university personnel, and analysts to stop talking about the SEC’s dominance, beat them. Until then, live with it.
BITTERSWEET
I decided to create this category this season because it seemed that there were a large group of people that had ups this bowl season that weren’t without the downs and for our first entrant, we look no farther than our newly anointed national champions.
AUBURN
Enjoy it while it lasts Tiger fans.
Cam Newton has declared for the NFL draft and perhaps more importantly, game-changing defensive tackle Nick Fairley has also decided to go pro. On the strength of those two players and what they did this season, I am almost willing to say right now that next year is looking like an 8 or 9 win season for Auburn. Congratulations on a national championship but I’ll put good money on them not repeating.
NON-AQ
TCU got to the Rose Bowl, played a big time AQ opponent and beat them without resorting to “trick” plays. They played a very straightforward game and they beat the Badgers straight up. With this signature win being exactly what the non-AQ teams have wanted forever, what could possibly land them in this category?
The non-AQ conferences ended the season with 6 teams ranked in the BCS Top 25. They were:
#3 TCU
#10 Boise State
#15 Nevada
#19 Utah
#24 Hawaii
#25 UCF
Unfortunately, Boise State was never considered for an at-large selection to a BCS bowl. Of course, say the detractors, they lost to a conference opponent in the WAC! They lost by a field goal on the road at a ranked team. How many other teams in the country would have dropped from 4th to 11th in one week when losing to a ranked team on the road?
The search for respect continues…
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
They ended their famous drought where they had never beaten an SEC team in a bowl game and played one of the best halves of football in any BCS game (topped, if at all, only by Stanford’s second half against Virginia Tech). In the second half, they almost looked disinterested on offense, scoring just 3 points and allowing the Razorbacks to chip away at their lead slowly but surely.
On top of that, the only reason that the players who sold memorabilia were allowed to play is if they committed to Coach Jim Tressel that they would come back to school next year and serve their suspensions. I personally don’t think they should have been allowed to play in this game but they were nonetheless and as a further ramification, the Buckeyes will need some extraordinary play from the guys replacing these players to compete for another BCS berth next year.
The last thing I want to mention about the 2010-2011 bowl season is the controversy that threatened to derail the magical season of Auburn this year and if Cam Newton knew anything about it, that magical season deserved to be derailed. I’m not going to say that I wish he had been declared ineligible (and more importantly, not reinstated) or that the Oregon Ducks got cheated out of a national championship.
As I have said before in this space specifically in reference to the Reggie Bush situation with USC, history happened, we can’t change it. Did Cam Newton deserve the Heisman this year? Absolutely. Did Auburn deserve to win the national title? Without a doubt; while I still think that Oregon was the slightly better team and would win maybe 53 out of 100 games, on this day, Auburn was hands down the better team… just by a little bit.
All that I don’t want to see is evidence that Cam Newton knew about the “pay-for-play” scheme during his time at Auburn. It cheapens everything Auburn did this year and if that is the case, then yes, Oregon got screwed a bit just like Oklahoma (and one could argue, Auburn) a few years ago by Reggie Bush.
I hope nothing comes out and I hope that he is telling the truth even though I was pulling for the Ducks. I like to see my teams win but above that, I like to see good clean football and this year’s national championship game was exactly that… assuming Newton was eligible.
I hope you enjoyed the FBS season this year as much as I did and I can’t wait to write more about it next year. However, it is that time once again to shift my focus to the NFL, then the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and eventually Major League Baseball.
Until next time…
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