The SoapBoxers

Butler – Duke

I was on the phone with DirecTV diagnosing why, exactly, my receivers were not picking up the MLB Extra Inning package (despite being signed up several weeks ago) and managed to miss much of the NCAA championship game.

I did manage to catch the last 12 minutes or so of the game.  I was pulling for underdog Butler.   When they missed a shot with less than 5 seconds remaining, I thought that they were finished.  I was stunned at how close Gordon Hayward’s desperation shot came.  Had he made the shot, I would have ranked it as the best moment in the history of the NCAA tournament.

It’s time to close the door on another basketball season and transition to baseball.

Is There an Editor in the House?

Earlier in the week, USA Today announced that their annual survey of baseball salaries indicated a 17% drop – saying that the average player’s salary dropped from $3.2 million in 2009 to $2.7 million in 2010.  A number of sites reported this news, only to later print news of a correction.  Player salaries actually ticked slightly upward (less than 1%).

I can understand some Mom and Pop sites believing this news, but struggle with how a big organization (ESPN, I’m looking at you) fell for it.

There are a number of ways to calculate this, but if we assume simply the 25 man rosters of each team, a $500,000 decrease per player would have been a $375 million decrease across baseball.

This really should have begged the question – where did this money come from?  Sure, there were some players taking pay cuts, but others signed contracts that paid them more money.  A few notable players retired, but they didn’t take hundreds of millions of dollars in salary with them.

I think one thing that may have made this believable was that the crop of free agents didn’t sign for as much money as last year’s crop.  However, that doesn’t mean that salaries declined – it’s a completely apples to oranges comparison.  The fact that Matt Holliday signed for less money this year than Mark Teixeira did last year doesn’t mean that this negatively impacted salaries.  Holliday isn’t making as much as Teixeira, but he is still exceeding his own 2009 salary.  That’s what we should be looking at.

Much of the blame should go to USA Today, of course.  They’ve been generating these reports for many years, and yet nobody realized that there was no basis for the reported decline.  The amount was large enough that it should have caused raised eyebrows and verification of the data.

The Resin Bag

I’m going to call this section – with short blurbs – The Resin Bag.  Welcome aboard, Resin Bag.

Tiger Woods fielded some questions from reporters and once again apologized for his actions.  OK, at this point, you either believe that he is contrite, or you don’t.  Is repetition going to change your mind?  Let’s move on.

Kurt Warner threw out the first pitch before the Diamondbacks game on Opening Day.  It was a bit to the third base side of the plate, but not a bad effort compared to the typical first pitches we see.

Marc Bulger – who replaced the “injured and washed-up” Warner as quarterback of the St. Louis Rams and was expected to lead them back to the Super Bowl – was cut loose by the team after a 1-15 season.  The consensus thought is that the Rams are paving the way to select Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford with the #1 pick in the draft.

Fantasy baseball heartburn began early this year, with the Youra Peeins third baseman Ian Stewart teeing off of Peeins teammate Yovani Gallardo.  It’s always a bittersweet moment when one fantasy player succeeds at the expense of someone else on your team.  In this case, Stewie is not only a Peein, but also a member of the real life Colorado Rockies – making it easier to cheer for him to succeed.

I also got roped into a “straight” league (as opposed to my Alphabet Soup League) as a last minute spot filler.  I haven’t even had a chance to take a close look at the rules, so the other teams will probably chew up Bats in the Belfry.  On the plus side, it’s an opportunity to compete in a CBS league – which I’ve heard good things about.

Two young pitchers signed big deals last year. The Nationals signed highly touted Stephen Strasburg to a deal that will pay $15.1 million between 2009 and 2012. The Reds signed Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman to a six year deal worth at least $30.25 million (if Chapman is arbitration-eligible after the 2012 or 2013 seasons, he can convert subsequent salary amounts into bonus and go through arbitration – a great deal for him).

The Reds are seriously considering bring Chapman to Cincinnati with them to start the season (although it has become increasingly likely that Chappy will also start the season in the minors). The Nationals are sending Strasburg to AA Harrisburg to start the season (not even AAA, but AA!). Does this mean that Chapman is better than Strasburg?

First of all, why is Strasburg being sent to AA instead of AAA? One reason is that Harrisburg’s average April temperatures (average high 61; average low 41) are a bit higher than those of Syracuse (high 56, low 35). Low temperatures can contribute to injuries.

The bigger question you may be asking is this – why send Strasburg to the minor leagues at all? Why not have him start the season with the Nationals?

As with many things in life, the short answer is easy: money.

Baseball players become eligible for free agency when they have accumulated 6.00 or more years of Major League service with a team. This is based on the number of days on the major league roster (or disabled list). You can accumulate six years of service in a six years span, or you can bounce up and down for twenty years and never reach this threshold.

There is one wrinkle to this – if you send a player to the minor for less than 20 days, he still gets credit for the entire season. Send him to the minors for 21 days, and he gets credit only for his actual time served.

If you aren’t grasping the significance yet, it’s this: if you can keep a guy’s service time at 5.9 years instead of 6.0 years, you delay his free agency by a year – saving quite a bit of money on the 7th year.

The point of having Strasburg start the season in the minors, then, is to delay his free agency eligibility until after the 2016 season.

A smaller issue is whether the Nationals can delay Strasburg’s arbitration eligibility. All players are eligible for binding salary arbitration after they have 3.00 or more years of service. Additionally, amongst players with more than 2 but less than 3 years of service, the top 17% (in terms of service time) are also eligible for arbitration. These players are referred to as “Super Twos”. The cutoff for Super Twos has historically been between 2 years, 128 days and 2 years, 140 days (but it’s a moving target, since it’s based on the current year’s group of players). In recent years, many teams attempt to game the system by giving a player slightly less than 128 days of service their rookie year, in an effort to have them fall short of Super Two status. If the Nationals can manage to do this, this would make Strasburg arbitration eligible after the 2013 season instead of after the 2012 season.

So, what does this all mean for Strasburg’s salary?

Note: Strasburg also got a $7.5 million signing bonus.

• 2010: $2M (per contract)
• 2011: $2.5M (per contract)
• 2012: $3M (per contract)
• 2013: If a Super Two, salary determined by arbitration. If not, the team can impose a salary (must be at least 80% of the previous year’s salary).
• 2014: Salary determined by arbitration
• 2015: Salary determined by arbitration
• 2016: If Strasburg has six years of service, he becomes a free agent following the 2015 season. If he has less than six years of service, his salary is determined by arbitration.

At any point in this path, Strasburg and the Nationals can sign a new contract that would remove him from the arbitration process. This is quite likely, since arbitration can be quite adversarial and tends to hurt some feelings. However, if Strasburg’s arbitration year is pushed back to 2014 and his free agency pushed back until after the 2016 season, these years are worth less money, and this will be reflected in any long term contract offered by the Nationals.

You might have missed the news with the hoopla of the NCAA tournament over the weekend, but the Minnesota Twins signed All Star catcher Joe Mauer to an 8 year, $184 million deal.  Obviously, $23 million per year is a lot of money for any player, but I think this deal makes a lot of sense for the Twins.  I’ll tell you why.

It prevents fan defection

The Twins have, historically, been a bit, er, frugal.  This in spite of the fact that former owner Carl Pohlad actually had more money than Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.  Steinbrenner ran the Yankees as a hobby and desired to have World Series championships.  Pohlad ran the Twins more like a business, actually paying attention to the bottom line.  In a smaller media market such as Minneapolis, this often meant having players like Johan Santana and Torii Hunter leave to pursue more money elsewhere.

Mauer has always been a special fan favorite for the Twins.  Mauer played his high school ball at Cretin-Durham Hall, right in the Twins cities.  In 2001, the Twins made him the first overall pick in the draft.  This wasn’t a slam dunk decision.  Many observers felt that USC pitcher Mark Prior was a much better gamble than a high school catcher, regardless of the numbers he put up in high school.  Looking back nine years later, the decision to pick Mauer was clearly the correct decision.

Mauer sets a good example on and off the field.  I am unaware of him ever being in any trouble off the field.  On the field, in his first 5 full seasons, he has won three batting titles, three gold gloves, and an MVP award – and has finished in the top 6 in the MVP voting on two other occasions.

In short, Mauer is bigger than hockey in Minnesota.  Well, maybe not.  Probably bigger than curling, though.  Losing Mauer would have been catastrophic for Twins fans, and they would have stayed away from games in droves.   This is a franchise that was once on the chopping block to be removed from baseball as part of contraction (the Expos-now-Nationals were the other team).

Keeps him away from the Yankees

The big fear, of course, was that the Yankees were going to come in and grab Mauer as a free agent.  This makes a lot of sense, with Yankee catcher Jorge Posada in the twilight of his career.  Brian Cashman would have loved the opportunity to add Mauer’s bat to the lineup.

This would have been a double whammy for the Twins.  Not only would it have been more difficult for the Twins to reach the post-season without Mauer, they’d be forced to play a Mauer-led Yankees team if they made it into the playoffs.

It’s actually not a bad deal, financially

You may look at Mauer’s numbers and say “meh, they’re pretty strong numbers, but he’s not exactly Albert Pujols.”

That’s quite true, but you need to look at the context of the numbers.  Mauer is a catcher – the most difficult position on the field.  It’s very rare to get elite offensive production out of a catcher.  Mauer is a best offensive catcher since Mike Piazza.  I hesitate to even make this comparison – not because of any shortcomings of Mauer, but shortcomings of Piazza.  Piazza was a very good hitter, but it’s very generous to refer to him as a catcher.  It’s an exaggeration to say that I’m a better defensive catcher than Piazza – but not by much.

Mauer is not a catcher in the mold of Piazza, though.  He is actually a good defensive catcher.  Finding a catcher who can combine good offensive and defensive skills is almost impossible –and you need to pay for it.  The drop-off between Mauer and the average MLB catcher is enormous.

Finally, the Twins are paying for some of Mauer’s peak years.  Players typically begin their prime years around age 27 and start to fade in their late 30s.  Mauer will be 28 next year when the contract starts in 2011 and 35 when the contract ends after the 2018 season.  Those are good years to pay for, although it wouldn’t be surprising to see Mauer enter a bit of a decline toward the end of the deal.  An 8 year contract that starts at age 28 is much better than an 8 year deal that starts at age 32.

What are your thoughts on the Mauer deal?  (Let’s try not to go down the “athletes are overpaid” route too much.  Elite performers in many fields are paid insane amounts of money.)

 

Store Update: We’ve been busy stocking the shelves at the Hyrax Publications store recently.  Last week was the release of Sell Yourself Short: A Guide to Short Story Writing (currently on sale for 99 cents!).  Today, we’re happy to announce the release of the audio version of The Cell Window.  The Cell Window is the tale of a professional voyeur.  The audio version is 48 minutes long and features the voice of Kosmo.  Note: Kosmo is not a professional audio book reader, so keep this in mind when setting your expectations.  The price is $3.99.

Want to read The Cell Window, but don’t like audio books?  You can buy the eBook featuring The Cell Window and eleven other stories in The Fiction of Kosmo, Volume 2 ($3.65).

Want it all, but don’t want to pay the a la carte prices?  The Annual Kosmo Pass (regularly $18, currently $9 + a bonus 2 months) will allow you to download all of Kosmo’s content for an entire year.  We plan to add 3-4 eBooks (10,000 – 20,000 words) per year and are planning to populate the audio book section to include nearly all of the fiction from the site. 

Not satisfied with your purchase? Please email Kosmo at Kosmo@ObservingCasually.com and we’ll refund your money!

MY APOLOGIES TO BOB RYAN OF THE BOSTON GLOBE

Dear Bob,

I am officially the Village Idiot. In last week’s article in the Casual Observer, I called out sports columnist Bob Ryan, who is often featured on ESPN’s Sports Reporters and Around the Horn for his incredible comment that Northern Iowa was one of eleven teams in the region that could take down the mighty Jayhawks of Lawrence Kansas.

Bob, I was wrong, you were right, I am eating crow, or my hat, or whatever you want to put on my menu. Just pass the salt and pepper.

Kansas was out-hustled, out shot, and outplayed and looked quite “ordinary” in losing to the Purple Panthers from Northern Iowa.

Upsets galore dominated the first weekend of play in the NCAA men’s tourney. Georgetown goes down, Pittsburgh, New Mexico, and even Villanova all bowed out early.

Most of our brackets are in total free-fall this year, including mine, so what do you do when your brackets go down? You root for all the underdogs so everyone else gets jobbed in their office pools too!

Right now I would say that Syracuse and Kentucky look the most impressive to me after week #1. But that is the beauty of this tourney, it is more than a week long. Some teams will continue to play well next weekend, some won’t and some will start to play a whole lot better. When you get down to sixteen, anything can happen. Heck it already has.

TIGER TRAP

Tiger came out of his den on Sunday and “allowed” two different interviews. One with Tom Rinaldi of ESPN and one with the Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman. Both of the interviews where held at Woods’ exclusive Islesworth county club and both were a whopping 5 minutes in length. While it appeared any question was open game, Woods often times said things such as “that is a personal matter” or “that is between Elin and me” aka … there is no freaking way I am going to answer that for you.

Tiger was very guarded as would be expected. The amount of coverage and the amount of sports talking heads hanging on his every word will increase exponentially in the upcoming days and weeks leading up to the Masters. What I am curious to see is how strict the Masters committee will be with the press at Augusta. They run a VERY tight ship, and I am guessing that having four green jackets in your closet likely gets you a little bit of preferential treatment from the committee. The press will be on egg-shells, as it is the toughest ticket in sports, and likely also the toughest place to get press credentials. All it takes is one improperly worded question and you might be shown the gate … It will be interesting to see if any of the sportswriters are willing to take that chance.

I think he will be ultra focused in his return to golf and it would not surprise me in the least if he wins his fifth Masters title this year. After all since winning in 2005 he has a sixth, two seconds and a third place finish … the guy knows this golf course.

PACK OF TWINKIES

The Twins got some good news and some bad news this weekend. First off, their stud closer Joe Nathan is out for the entire year and will be undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair his arm after feeling a “twinge” and taking himself out of a spring training game just a week or so ago. This is a major loss for Minnesota as Nathan has been very consistent and one of the best in the American League over the last few season.

They did lock up all everything catcher Joe Mauer for the next eight years for a whopping twenty three million a year. If you can do quick math that is a 184 million dollar deal. He is really a franchise player and I am sure even to a guy like Mauer it would be hard to spend that much money. Heck just think of what you could do with 184 million dollars …

I for one am sure that would be enough to take Bob Ryan out for a nice dinner and apologize …

I am in the midst of my fantasy baseball draft.  As I have mentioned on a few ocassions, this league is a strange beast.  The main rule is that you are only allowed to start one player for each letter of the alphabet (based on last name).  You can’t play Matt Holliday and Cole Hamels at the same time.  This leads to some decision making that varies greatly from standard leagues.  Suddenly, Akinori Iwamura and Chris Iannetta are very valuable players, due to the scarcity of players for the letter I.  Iannetta is doubly valuable, since he’s a catcher within the scarce letter.  The Alphabet Soup League is in its third year of existence.

The league has a very strange draft.  There’s no way to use an out of the box automated draft, and an in-person draft isn’t feasible, with players scattered across a decent swath of the country.  Drafting one player at a time over email would take a long time.  Thus I have devised a way to allow participants to draft in a shotgun approach.

First, I developed a grid (shown below) that broke the draft into 10 rounds, with each participant assigned 2-3 letters for each round.  For example, in the first round, my letters were B and V.  Nobody else could draft players with B or V in that round.  This means that everyone could send me their picks whenever they wanted to – they didn’t have to wait for anyone else to pick (I announce my picks vefore the start of a round, to ensure that I don’t base my pick upon  how the round is unfolding).  To ensure that there is no bias, I use the last digit of the closing Dow Jones Industrial Average on a particular day to set the position in the grid.  We march through the draft, round by round.  Very good players drop to later rounds simply because their letter is deep in talent.

 

Why such a convoluted system?  Simply to make things more challenging, of course.  A few of the GMs (in particular, one “shark”) wouldn’t be interested if this was “just another fantasy league”.  I like winning, but it’s more important for me to match wits with quality opponents.

How is is the draft unfolding for me so far?

In round one, I snagged Justin Verlander and Josh Beckett.  These guys should be a good core for my rotation.

In the second round, I had the letters L and O.  L is easy – reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.  O is more difficult.  In a word, the letter O sucks.  I decide to go with Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo, even though he’ll be splitting time with Chris Iannetta (and in a pefect world for my Rockies, Iannetta will push him completely aside).  This is a low risk move, since there’s not a ton of value within O, aside from David Ortiz – and DH/1B  guys are a dime a dozen.  It also provides a bit of insurance – looking through the next few rounds, I don’t see any quality catchers would might slip to me.  I can’t simply grab a guy like Joe Mauer or Brian McCann – I have to wait until I get to the round with the correct letter.

In round 3, I decide to start snapping up the best available pitchers and worry about hitters later.  I grab young ace Felix Hernandez of the Mariners, and the closer for Seattle, David Aardsma.  A is not a great letter – Aardsma represents good value for that letter.  My strategy will be to win at least 4 of the 5 pitching categories in my weekly matchup, and pick up at least 1-2 wins on the hitting side.  2 hitting wins and 4 pitching wins is a fine 60% success rate.  That’s enough to make the playoffs – and winning 6 of 10 in the playoffs will advance me to the next round each time.

By round 4, some people are starting to realize my strategy.  I grab another young ace, Yovani Gallardo.  I also grab my second hitter, Matt Wieters.  Wieters, like Olivo, is a catcher.  However, Wieters has an extremely bright future ahead of him, as one of the top prospects in the game.  Miguel Olivo slinks toward my bench.

In round 5, I actually add a couple of hitters.  I think Howie Kendrick is the best of the remaining K players.  He played well down the stretch last year, and he should getting the starting second baseman nod ahead of Macier Izturis.  I also have the letter grouping % – which includes players from Q, U, X, Y, and Z.  The twist is that while these players are all lumped together in the draft (because they’re too shallow to stand alone), you can actually play a Q player AND a Z player – it’s different than playing two R players.  I grab Carlos Quentin – not only is he a good player, but he’s a Q player.  After the draft, I’ll try to nab a Y or Z player in free agency.

What lies ahead?

I need a first baseman, third baseman, shortstop, two outfielders, and a couple of pitchers.  I have specific players identified.  I wish I could tell you who … but I can’t – because other members of the league may be reading this.  Suffice it to say that I’m much more worried about shortstop and third base than I am about the other positions.

 

Interested in how the draft turns out?  Read the conclusion.

With the baseball season just around the corner (really – it is!), here are some things to watch in 2010.  We’ll likely have a few articles on this topic.  The order for these articles will be the ever-popular “whatever happens to pop in my head today”.

The Nationals

All the hoopla was about the signing of Stephen Strasburg, but the Nationals also put a bit of money into the team during free agency.  They didn’t go crazy with the money (15M over 2 years for Jason Marquis being the costliest deal).  Nor did they cost themselves draft picks by signing any Type A free agents.  What they did do is make several low risk moves.  The deal I like best is Chien-Ming Wang signing a 2M deal for 2010.  Wang won’t be healthy enough to pitch until May, following recent surgery.  However, if he can return to the form that saw him go a combined 28-13 over 400+ innings during the 2006 and 2007 seasons, then it’s money well spent.

The gNats also picked up several other guys who could help them.  Ivan Rodriguez behind the dish, Matt Capps in the pen, and Adam Kennedy at 2B are among the guys who could help.  They also have some decent players already in the lineup.  Perhaps this is the year that people realize that Adam Dunn is a fine offensive player who just happen to be weak in the areas that critics like to jump on – strikeouts and batting average.  Seriously, folks, strikeouts just aren’t that big of a deal – and Dunn makes up for his batting average by walking a ton.  Oh, yeah, and he hits lots of homers.  (Let’s not talk about his defense.

Am I suggesting that the Nationals will make the playoffs?  Holy crap – of course not.  But they’ll no longer be the laughingstock of the league.  That honor will fall upon the Pirates some unknown team.

The Rockies

Hey, I’m a Rockies fan,  so of course I think the Rockies are a story to watch.  But, really, they ARE a story to watch this year.  Prior to 2007, the Rockies had made the playoffs exactly once – in 1995.  In the last three seasons, they have made the playoffs twice.  Many fans tend to write them off as a fluke because both seasons were characterized by very slow starts and red-hot second halves.  If the Rockies can put together a strong wire-to-wire season in 2010, more people may look at them as legitimate perennial playoffs contenders.

There are lots of young players to watch with the Rockies.  If Troy Tulowitzki can avoid the disastrously slow that plagued him last year, he may make a run at an MVP award.  Dexter Fowler, Carlos Gonzalez, and Ian Stewart should all take another step forward.  Youngster Jhoulys Chacin may also crack the rotation this year.  Starting pitcher Jeff Francis will be returning from injury.

The rise of the Rockies could be aided by the divorce of Frank and Jamie McCourt.  The McCourts own the Dodgers – and we all saw what happened to the Padres in the aftermath of the divorce of their owners, John and Becky Moores.

The Cardinals

Not only did re-signing Matt Holliday make the Cardinals a force to be reckoned with in the near future, but it also sent a strong message to Albert Pujols that management is truly interested in having a strong team around him (and thus making it more likely that they will be able to re-sign him).  I’ve been impressed with Pujols since seeing him during his brief stint with the Peoria Chiefs (low A).  Making Albert Pujols happy is a good idea.

On the field, Pujols and Holliday are a fearsome combination in the 3-4 spots in the lineup and Carpenter and Wainright similarly strike fear in opposing hitters at the top of the rotation.  I’m struggling to find a scenario that doesn’t have the Cardinals winning the NL Central, barring a major injury.  Sure, the Cubs might be capable of a run, but you know they’ll find some way to mess it up.

Another Super Bowl is in the books. With a two year old and an infant in the house, I managed to catch a very small chunk of the game – including the critical interception. What a nice post-season by Tracy Porter, with the pick-6 in the Super Bowl as well as the pivotal interception against the Vikings. I was pulling slightly for the Colts, but didn’t mind having Drew Brees and the Saints nab the win.

Danica Patrick finished 6th in a stock car race over the weekend. Before getting too excited, it should be noted that this was not a NASCAR race, but an ARCA race. With absolutely no disrespect to the fine drivers in the ARCA series, ARCA is not at the same level as NASCAR. Having said that, it’s still a nice achievement for someone jumping from a light Indy car into a heavy stock car. That’s one factor that could work against Danica this year as she races in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (the second highest series, not to be confused with the Sprint Cup Series). She will be running a full Indy season and a partial NASCAR seasons – jumping back and forth between Indy cars and stock cars. These are types of cars that handle very differently, and the end result could be disappointing seasons in both series as her muscle memory gets all wonked up. (The true NASCAR fans out there are going to realize that this is hardly a unique assessment on my part).

I’m definitely pulling for Danica to make a successful transition. Really, there is no reason why a woman can’t succeed in NASCAR. Women have had success in several other racing series. If we look across to NHRA, Shirley Muldowney and Angelle Sampey have won championships, and Melanie Troxel is a contender in the Funny Car series.

Jimmie Johnson is trying for his fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup title this year. I’m hoping that Tony Stewart – who led the points race for much of last year – is able to knock him down a notch. The Gatorade Duels (qualifying races) take place on Thursday and the flag drops on the Daytona 500 at noon Eastern time on Sunday.

The Olympics are very nearly upon us. Fire up your DVRs. Coverage will be available NBC, CNBC, USA, MSNBC, and C-Span (OK, maybe not that last one). Go to NBCOlympics.com for details. I’m very disappointed to see that women’s luge (featuring my favorite 2010 Olympian, Erin Hamlin) will be in the 11:30 PM to 1:00 AM time slot in my time zone. The current Sports Illustrated features a guide to the Olympics. USA Today also has a special edition on the new stands. The USA Today edition has some information that is a bit out of date, but it seems to be a good overall reference.

I got my new t-shirt from USALuge.org and will thus be stylin’ while watching the Olympics.

Next week, pitchers and catchers will report to Spring Training. Expect to see a LOT of baseball coverage this year – even more than last year, since Kosmo will have MLB Extra Innings this year (w00t!). 2010 should be an interesting year. Players like Matt Holiday, Jason Bay, John Lackey, Zach Greinke, Felix Hernandex, and Justin Verlander will be out to provde that they are worthy of their new contracts. Seventeen year old JUCO baseball player Bryce Harper will look to make the leap into the professional ranks – perhaps as the #1 overall pick. Will the McCourt divorce tear apart the Dodgers? Will Sheets and Bedard rebound from injuries and return to their previous levels?  Will the National League finally administer a well-deserved beatdown to their little brothers in the Junior Circuit?

With Johnny Goodman still on leave for medical reasons, Kosmo is jumping in with another sports column.  We miss your articles, Johnny – get well sooon.

A Strong Brees

We’re on the cusp of another Super Bowl.  On one side of the field, we’ll have the Indianapolis Colts, led by Peyton Manning.  Manning is the son of Pro Bowl quarterback, the brother of another Pro Bowl quarterback, and he himself is a Pro Bowl quarterback, Super Bowl Champion, NFL MVP, and #1 overall pick in the NFL draft.  From day one, he has been the unquestioned leader of the Colts.

On the other hand, we have Drew Brees of the Saints.  The Saints themselves are a feel-good story – some good fortune for a city that was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005.  When Brees was drafted, the San Diego Chargers actually had the #1 pick that would have allowed them to pick up Michael Vick.  They traded that pick to Atlanta for the #5 overall pick (which they used to draft LaDainian Tomlinson) and a third round pick.  Having not gotten Vick at #1, they nabbed Brees in the second round.

Unlike Manning, Brees wasn’t given the keys to the kingdom.  His first few years in the league were up and down (eh, OK, so mostly he sucked), and the Chargers felt the need to draft his replacement in 2004.  They wanted Eli Manning, but he didn’t want to sign with them.  So they drafted Manning and traded him to the New York Giants for Philip Rivers (who had been picked #4 overall) on draft day.  Rivers would have been been giving a strong chance to unsteat Brees for the starter’s job – except that he held out nearly all of training camp.

Brees promptly turned his career around and had his finest season in 2004, throwing 27 touchdowns with just 7 interceptions.  After going to the Saints as a free agent after the 2005 season, Brees had TD totals of 26, 28, 34, and 34.  He has topped 4300 yards all four seasons and cracked the 5000 barrier in 2008.

For his career, Brees now has 202 TDs against 110 interceptions, 30000 career passing yards, and a QB rating of 91.9.  Yes, the QB who was nearly thrown to the curb by the Chargers is now on pace for the Hall of Fame.

No League for Old Men

In a move that wasn’t particularly surprising Cardinals QB Kurt Warner announced his retirement.  Ther ultimate feel good story, Warner arose (like a Phoenix) many times during his career.  First, he clawed his way up from stocking shelves at a Hy Vee grocery store (@ $5.50 per hour) to an NFL job.  Then, after injuries caused him to lose his starting job, he regained a starting job with the Cardinals and led the formerly hapless franchise to its first Super Bowl – and nearly won it. 

All told, Warner went to three Super Bowls – winning one and narrowly losing the other two.  He has the record for most career passing yards Super Bowls (1156) due to the fact that he has the highest, second highest, and third highest passing totals in Super Bowl history.  Consider for a moment how statistically unlikely that is to occur …

Off the field, Warner does everything the right way – from the big things like adopting his children to smaller things like picking up the check for random people every time his family goes out to eat.  You’ll be missed, K-Dub (unless you pull a Favre).  (Read my recent article about Kurt Warner, “High Flying Cardinals”)

When my Minnesota Vikings played Brett Favre’s bizarre waiting game last summer and signed him to be their quarterback, I was fed up.  Not only have I never been a fan of Favre’s, but it seemed to me that Favre delayed his decision simply to avoid summer camp.  There’s a four letter word for that – L-A-Z-Y.

I made the somewhat irrational decision to boycott the Vikings until Favre was n longer with the team.  Lots of people questioned this, especially when the Vikings were perched on the brink of the Super Bowl.  I felt validated when Favre threw away another Super Bowl opportunity with yet another poor decision (flashback to the 2008 NFC Championship game, Brett?).  Hopefully Favre will retire again and stay retired.

Double Standard

Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman recently signed a contract with the Cincinnati Reds (is anyone else struck by the irony of a player fleeing a communist nation and signing with the REDS?  No?  Just me?  OK, thought I’d ask).  The pitcher’s deal will pay him $30.25 million over 6 years.  Although those in the baseball fandom were very much aware of the deal, it didn’t seem to raise the ire of fans like Stephen Strasburg’s 4 year, $15.5 million deal (see articles “Defense of Scott Boras” and “The Righty and the Lefty”).  (Yes, in theory, Strasburg could earn more money over the six year span if he performs well and gets decent arbitration awards for years 5 and 6 – but if they both flop, Chapman could come out $15 million ahead).

Let’s compare the two players.  Strasburg is five months younger than Chapman.  Strasburg is also the more highly ranked prospect.  So, why, then, is it a sign of the apocolyse for him to get $15.5 million while Chapman’s contract didn’t stir such strong emotions.

Chapman wasn’t subject to the draft, and thus had complete control over his future – unlike players in the US and Canada, who are only allowed to negotiate with the team that drafted them.  My good friend Fulton Christoper opined that this is a good reason to implement a worldwide draft.

Hamlin Heating Up the Ice

US luger Erin Hamlin (@ErinHamlin on Twitter), Kosmo’s favorite winter Olympian, racked up the following finishes in the World Cup season (singles events)

• November 20/21 – Calgary, Canada – 7th
• November 28/29 – Innsbruck, Austria – 9th
• December 5/6 – Altenberg, Germany – 5th
• December 12/13 – Lillehammer, Norway – 3rd
•  January 2/3 – Königssee, Germany – 5th
• January 9/10 – Winterberg, Germany – 3rd
• January 16/17- Oberhof, Germany – 8th
• January 30/31 – Cesana, Italy – 3rd

That’s good for an overall finish of 4th place in the standings, and Hamlin finished very strong, with  three podium (top 3) finishes in the last 5 events.  You heard it here first – Hamlin is picking up steam and is going to nab the luge gold in Vancouver.  Watch your rear view mirror, Tatjana.

And in an administrative note, we have a new link partner – Aibal.com.  Aibal is another non-niche blog.  Drop by and visit.

I’ve been a sports fan nearly all my life.  Here are my favorite sports moments.  I’ve included an “embezzler’s dozen” – my 11 favorite moments.

1. Holliday Slides Into Playoffs – You seen the play a million times.  Matt Holliday slides toward home, Michael Barrett drops the ball.  The ump calls Holliday safe.  The one thing that you can definitely say is that Holliday was not out on the play – he was not tagged before being ruled safe.  Further, even if he had been called out, all would not have been lost.  The Rockies would have been tied 8-8 with two outs, Todd Helton on base, Brad Hawpe (.926 OPS that year) at the plate, and a very shaky Trevor Hoffman on the mound.  Then there’s the can of worms about Garrett Atkins’ “double” in the 7th inning.  If that is properly called a homer, the Rockies would have won the game 8-6 in 9 innings.

I was chatting online with Bob Inferapels during much of the game.  When the Padres scored twice in the top of the 13th to take an 8-6 lead (and ace closer Hoffman was on the way in from the pen) Bob offered his sympathy.  My response was (paraphrased) “Yeah, Hoffman’s good, so it will be hard to rally – but we do have the heart of the lineup coming up, so you never know.”  Indeed.

2. Kosmo Races Three Miles in One Day, Lives to Tell About It – During my final two years of high school, I was a member of the track team.  I ran the mile with a lot of heart, but not a great deal of skill.  At the final meet of my senior year, I asked my coach if I could also run the two mile.  We have a tiny track team, so he said “sure”.  Mind you, I had never trained for this distance.

How did I do?  Not very well – but I did finish the race, and I did beat one person.  Later in the meet, I ran the mile.  I was completely gassed from the two mile earlier in the meet, and ran one of the slowest miles in my career.  Nonetheless, it was a great feeling of accomplishment.  The kicker?  It was the only meet my parents were able to attend.

3. Helton’s Hat Trick – I have been to two Rockies games in my life.  The first was at Wrigley Field when I was living in Illinois.  The second was during a trip to Colorado with my girlfriend at the time (now my wife).  We had seats a half dozen rows back of third base.  Lovely seats (and pretty reasonably priced).

The game was on May 29, 2003.  The Rockies were playing their hated rivals, the LA Dodgers.

In the first inning, Todd Helton – my favorite Rockie at the time – hit a homer.  In the third inning, he picked up a single.  In the fourth, Helton homered again.  In the fifth, he made an out.  In the eight, he capped off the scoring with another homer.  Total damage for the day – 4 hits in 5 at bats, 3 homers, 4 runs scored, 4 runs batted in a 12-5 romp.  It was one of only two times in his career that Helton had three homers in a game.

4. Matsui’s Slam – Kaz Matsui hit 4 homers during the 2007 regular season.  So when he came to the plate in the 4th inning of game of game two of the 2007 NLDS with the bases loaded and the Rockies down 3-2, Kyle Lohse probably wasn’t particularly worried.  But Kaz Mat launched a grand slam that propelled the Rockies to a 10-5 win en route a sweep of the Phillies.

5. Blythe Beats Nebraska – My all-time favorite Iowa State football player is former wide receiver Todd Blythe.  On November 6, 2004, he lit up the Nebraska Cornhuskers for 188 yards on 8 catches – in the first half.  Unfortunately, he went into half time with an injury and was unable to pad his stats in the second half as the Cyclones held on fora 34-27 win.

6. Cyclones Beat Hawks, Cold – In 2001, I bought season tickets to Iowa State football (at a discount for recent alums) and sold off all but one ticket – holding on to the ticket to the September 15th game against in-state rival Iowa.  Then the September 11th attacks happened, and the game was delayed until November 24th.  It was cold.  The Cyclones took a 14-0 lead into half time and hung on for a 17-14 win.  This was the only time I’ve been in the crowd for a win against Iowa.  It was awesome.

7. Wallace Goes Long Distance for TD – In a 2002 game against Texas Tech, Cyclone quarterback Seneca Wallace scored on a 12 yard run.  Well, officially a 12 yard run.  Wallace actually ran about 120 yards on the play, traversing the field as he tried to find a clear route to pay dirt.  The win against Texas Tech pushed Iowa State’s record to 6-1 (the only loss being a controversial one to Florida State in the first game on the season).  Iowa State was in the top 10 (for the first time EVER) and  Wallace was routinely receiving this sort of praise.  The ‘Clones would unfortunately lose 6 of the final 7 games (not helped by games against four teams in the top 15 during that span, all on the road).  But it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

8. Sanderson Caps off a Perfect Career – Cael Sanderson put the entire sports of wrestling on the map during his unblemished college career.  In the 2002 finals, he beat Jon Trenge of Lehigh 12-4 to finish his career 159-0 with 4 national titles.  Trenge was no slouch – although he never won an NCAA title, he finished in the top three on three occasions.

Fittingly, as I listened to Cael’s final bout on the radio, I was pulling into Ames for a visit (see next item).

9. Kosmo on ESPN – In the late 90s and early 00s, I was a regular at women’s NCAA tournaments.  Ames (home to my alma mater, Iowa State) often hosted games.  Tickets were relatively cheap, the games were entertaining, and it was a good excuse to go back and visit Ames.  On March 25, 2002, I was in the stands to see Tennessee knock off Vanderbilt in the regional final.

During the game, some of the lower seats became vacant.  I was at the game with The Crunchy Conservative‘s brother, and we decided to sneak down into the good seats.  We scored some serious camera time on ESPN (cross “be featured on ESPN” off the bucket list), including this shot which makes it appear as if I am coaching Vanderbilt (in actuality, their coach is stooped over, out of sight of the camera).  That’s me between #21 and #13 and Crunchy’s brother in the white hat to my left.

10. Hawks Beat Michigan – For the first part of my life, I was actually a fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes.  My wife jokingly (??) calls me a traitor for changing to Iowa State, even though I’ve been an Iowa State fan for more than 17 years now.

The defining football moment of my youth was on October 19, 1985.  As the rest of the family was going into the house to get ready for church, I was standing atop a five gallon bucket in the barn (the only place where I could hear the radio very well).  With two seconds remaining in the game, #2 Michigan held a 10-9 lead over #1 Iowa.  Iowa kicker Rob Houghtlin lined up for a 35 yard field goal – and drilled it!

Alas, the Hawkeyes would not finish the season undefeated, suffering a defeat to Ohio State in Columbus two weeks later (and then a dismantling by UCLA in the Rose Bowl).  If you’re wondering why I hate Ohio State, look no further.

11. Karlis Kicks Vikes to Victory – This one is a favorite just because it is so quirky.  On the surface, a 23-21 football game doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.  But this game, on November 5, 1989 between the Vikings and Rams (then still in LA) was not ordinary.  At the end of regulation, the score was 21-21.  The Rams had scored on a Jim Everett touchdown pass and two short runs by Greg Bell.

Rich Karlis had provided all of the fireworks for the Vikings.

Rich Karlis was the kicker.  He had belted a record-tying 7 field goals in the game (including 5 of fewer than 30 yards).

Think it couldn’t get any crazier?  The Vikings won the game when Mike Merriweather blocked a punt out of the end zone for a safety.  Merriweather obviously didn’t understand the rule about punts being blocked out of the end zone (I guess he thought it would be a touchback and go back to the Rams on the 20?) as he was visibly distraught after the play.

 

Those are my favorite sports moments – what are yours?

It doesn’t take much effort or courage to second guess a player’s contract.  However, every once in a while, a deal is so awful that nearly everyone correctly pans it immediately after it was signed.  Today, we’ll look at three awful deals.

Barry Zito

Zito was a former Cy Young award winner and a lefty to boot.  After the 2006 season, the San Francisco Giants signed the free agent pitcher to a seven year contract worth $126 million.  So, what’s wrong with that?

Well, since that Cy Young year in 2002 (23-5 with a 2.75 ERA), he had been pretty mediocre, going 55-46 with a 3.83 ERA.  His numbers, across the board, were slipping.  He was giving up more hits, more walks, more homers, and was striking out fewer batters (strikeouts aren’t a panacea, but it you stop striking out people without compensating in another area, it’s going to hurt you).

In essence, a pitcher who began his career with aspirations of the Hall of Fame (47-17, 3.04 ERA in his first three seasons) appeared to now be just average, or maybe slightly above.  Unfortunately, the Giants were paying him ace money.

What happened?  Despite moving to the allegedly weaker National League, Zito’s numbers got even worse.  He went 11-13 with 4.53 ERA in 2007 and slid further to 10-17, 5.15 in 2008.  He was an utter laughingstock.  Zito bounced back a bit in 2009, posting a 4.03 ERA (along with a 10-13 record) while putting up improved numbers in other areas.  Three years into the deal, the pundits have been proven correct.  Zito will have to put up dominant numbers for the rest of the years in the contract in order for the Giants’ money to be well spent.

Gary Matthews Jr.

In 2006, Gary Matthews put up by far the best season of his career, hitting .313 with 19 homers and 79 RBI.  He was selected to the All-Star game and finished 30^th in the MVP balloting.

His reward was a five year deal from the Anaheim Angels worth $50 million.  The baseball world was stunned.  Even with his 2006 season, Matthews had been a below average offensive player during the course of his career (posting a career OPS+ of 97, with 100 equating to an average player).

If Matthews had been a bit younger, the deal would have made more sense.  It could have been argued that Matthews was having a breakout year in 2006 – with more of the same on the horizon.  Matthews was 32 at the end of the 2006 season, though.  There’s a special term for “breakout” seasons that happen at that age.  Fluke.

After three lackluster seasons with the Angels which saw him as a part time player toward the end, Matthews was traded to the Mets with two years and $23.5 million remaining on his contract.  Also traded to the Mets in the deal was $21 million in cold, hard cash to offset Matthews’ contract.

Tom Glavine

Tom Glavine is, without argument, a future Hall of Fame pitcher and one of the best left handed pitchers of this era.  What’s he doing on this list?

After the 2007 season, Glavine was signed to a one year, $8 million deal by the Atlanta Braves, for whom he pitched during most of his career.  Although several of Glavine’s secondary statistics seemed to indicate that he was in decline (common for a pitcher of his age), the $8 million salary was not the problem.

The problem was that Glavine was a type A free agent.  The team losing Glavine would get the Braves’ 2008 first round draft pick (#18 overall) and well as a sandwich pick between the first and second round (which would end up being the #33 overall pick).  That meant that the team losing Glavine would get two potential building blocks for the future.

That all sounds pretty bad, huh?  Well, to make it even worse, the team losing Glavine (and gaining those picks) was the Braves’ bitter division rival, the New York Mets.  As someone who is quite familiar with the free agency compensation system, I very nearly spit Pepsi onto my monitor when I saw the Braves inflict this sort of damage upon themselves.

So, what happened?

Minor league expert John Sickels has the player picked at #18 (Ike Davis) as the #4 prospect in the Mets system and the player picked at #33 (Bradley Holt) as the 9th best Mets prospects in his 2010 Mets Prospects list.

As for Glavine?  Well, there really wasn’t much chance of significant upside for the Braves.  A 42 year old pitcher is always working on borrowed time.  But even I expected more than a 2-4 record and 5.54 ERA in 13 starts during his final stint with the Braves.

So, what were the Braves thinking?  It seems that they were blinded by sentimentality.  Glavine was a huge part of their success in the 90s, and it felt good to bring him back.  A front office with as much experience as the Braves should have made this decision with their head instead of their heart.