A Trip Through Fantasyland

"Tas" is the reason I have avoided writing about fantasy baseball on this site for the last five years. So though I play it, admire it, and can for short periods become obsessed by it, I don't write about it. Because right about the time normal people hear the syllable "Tas" in "Fantasy Baseball", their eyes gloss over, and they start to feel a little numbness just behind and to the outside of their eyelids. And they're gone.

I get this, so I don't write about fantasy baseball. But the people who do, and the people who read them, generally know their stuff. If you want to see exactly how obsessive fantasy baseball (also called Rotisserie) can get, I highly encourage you to check out Fantasyland, a very entertaining book by Sam Walker, which is now available in paperback. Walker was a sportswriter who was invited to join "TOUT Wars", a premiere fantasy baseball league run by a bunch of guys who sell fantasy baseball advice for a living.

He goes totally overboard. Besides spending thousands of dollars, he uses his access to players and GMs to try and influence them. For instance, he called Pirates GM David Littlefield and trying to convince him to trade for Doug Mientkiewicz (who was eventually traded to the Red Sox) because Mientkiewicz would get more at-bats in Pittsburgh. He also tries to convert Jacque Jones to becoming more disciplined at the plate, and Jones plays a pivotal (and touching) role in the book. For Twins fans, it's a fantastic read.

Anyway, there are thousands of people who have spent months crunching numbers and reading tea leaves trying to figure out exactly how many RBI Jason Kubel is going to end up with this year. And last weekend, the top echelon of these people - that TOUT Wars league - gathered and started drafting players. So I thought it might be kind of interesting to see exactly what they think various Twins will be worth this year. And whether that might be a reality check to Twins fans.

It's Good To Be King
How far ahead of every other starting pitcher is Johan Santana? According to the rotoheads, it's not even close:

Johan Santana - $36
John Lackey - $24
Dan Haren, Felix Hernandez - $23
C.C. Sabathia, Jeremy Bonderman, Roy Halladay - $22
Daisuke Matsuzaka - $21
Curt Schilling - $20

No reality check here. There's a level of top starters, like Schilling, Dice-K, King Felix and Halladay. Then there's a slightly higher level, which is completely empty. And then there's the level that Santana is on. Giggle.

And a Bunch of Jacks (or is it Jokers?)
And the rest of the rotation?

Boof Bonser - $11
Matt Garza - $9
Glen Perkins - $1
Ramon Ortiz, Sidney Ponson, Carlos Silva, Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker - $0

The fantasy baseball junkies like Bonser more than Twins Territory does. They also clearly don't expect Garza to remain in the minors long. And they're hoping they'll see Perkins. And Slowey or Baker. I'll let you figure out what that means for the rest of the names on the list.

Closing the Door
The seamheads don't lust after the Nathanator quite as much as Santana. That doesn't mean he's any slouch:

Joe Nathan - $26
Mariono Rivera - $25
BJ Ryan - $25
Francisco Rodriguez - $24
Huston Street - $23

He's been ridiculously consistent and healthy (knock, knock) the last two years, making him a favorite. This isn't a fluke, by the way. He finished with the top price in another premier league draft (LABR League) just a few weeks ago.

The Rest of the Best Bullpen
The rest of the bullpen is usually drafted based on their perceived ability to end up closing. Given Nathan's track record, it's a good sign that the roto-junkies didn't bid much compared to other middle relievers:

Juan Rincon - $3
Jesse Crain - $2
Pat Neshek - $1
Dennys Reyes, Matt Guerrier - undrafted

Essentially, it looks like they expect roles to more or less follow seniority, which is probably accurate for this organization. I am a little suprised that Reyes didn't get drafted. I think the general expectation in Fantasyland is that he'll regress a bit this year.

That's it for tonight. If I have time, I'll cover the hitters side tomorrow.

Twins Takes
Very briefly...

• Garza was sent down, allowing us all to pick his recall date in a pool at the event on the 7th. Good times. I'll go with 4/24.
• So apparently this leaves 28 guys in camp, but I still can't figure out who the last guy is. 5 starting pitchers + 6 relievers + 9 position players + 4 bench = 24 guys. Besides them we know that Durbin, Heintz and Rabe are still around. Who is the last guy? Is Liriano still in camp? Can someone help me?
• While this whole 25th spot is a bit of a mess, it's worth noting that it's partly due to the injury to Alejandro Machado. That's unfortunate, but it's not a bad break for the organization. His injury, which will take 5-6 months to rehab, virtually assures the Twins that they'll get to keep Machado in their organization next year and not have to return him to the Nationals. The Twins might very well have their backup middle infielder for the next several year for the cost of a Rule V waiver. Nice.

24 (23?) Guys for a 25 Man Roster

The Twins cut five more guys yesterday - four that weren't surprises and one that is. Left-handed reliever Mike Venafro was reassigned to Rochester, and has three days to decide if he'll accept it or become a free agent. If he accepts it, he'll wait his turn as a left-handed reliever in the bullpen, possibly competing with Ricky Barret for that opportunity.

Venafro was a surprise because he had a chance of taking the last spot on the roster. Instead, there are now 29 players still in camp, and 23 of them can feel comfortable that they'll be able to watch the Opening Day festivities up close. The rest are at least nominally competing for two spots. Or rather, two are competing for one spot (the fifth starter), and five are competing for the last spot (the 25th man).

The fifth starter spot has been talked about ad nauseum. Carlos Silva has been absolutely awful, but it's more telling that Matt Garza hasn't even had a chance to be that. Instead, he's been relegated to pitch the late innings of games, after the other teams are inserting backups and prospects. If the Twins were serious about Garza, I suspect we'd have seen him with at least one start over the last week or so. Silva's trying his best to convince the Twins he belongs in Rochester, but he hasn't succeeded so far.

If the Twins do the right thing and keep Garza, they still have a decision to make about who the 25th guy will be. It would probably mean keeping Silva as a 7th bullpen arm, but does that do him any favors? If he really wants to recover, he likely needs to pitch as a starter and work through the problems that he doesn't seem to have in his bullpen sessions. Plus, it's not like he's going to walk away from his $4.35 million salary.

But if not Silva, who? JD Durbin has been similarly awful, needs work in AAA at least as much as Silva, and is also a long shot to catch on with any other club. Josh Rabe has had a nice spring, and I suppose that you could make the case that he could replace Lew Ford, but that just calls into question the wisdom of re-signing Ford - a light-hitting right-handed sixth outfielder who could just as easily be replaced by Rabe.

To be honest, I can't even figure out who the 29th guy in camp is. But the 28th probably has the best shot of breaking with the team besides Silva. That's Chris Heintz, who could be a 3rd catcher, which would supposedly allow Gardy to have Mauer bat more at designated hitter.

I'm tired of beating that dead horse, but I'll do it one more time. On the rare occassion that an injury forces a DH to become a catcher, the pitcher needs to bat. That's not an issue late in the game, when the Twins are usually switching relievers every inning anyway. It might be an issue early in the game, in which case you let the pitcher have one damn at-bat. Or have MAtt Guerrier earn his paycheck. This isn't rocket science, and nobody needs to burn a 25th roster spot to solve it. (Thwap. Neigh. THWAP! Silence.)

Unless, of course, there are no better options, and frankly, that's kinda looking like it's the situation. You could make the case that giving it to Silva or Durbin would hurt them more than it would help them. What the Twins could really use is a left-handed bat with some power off the bench, but they didn't even bring anyone like that into camp. (Unless you cound Garret Jones. And you really shouldn't.)

It's not the organization's finest hour, to be sure. The team couldn't find a backup shorstop, completely ignored any left-handed pop, and now has a roster spot for which they essentially don't need and aren't really going to use.

This organization prides itself on the little things, and generally they succeed. But now they find themselves with plenty of needs, an open roster spot, and no candidates to fill them. They'll take plenty of heat over the next couple of days about who they bring north. But maybe we should be looking a little closer on who they brought south.

Vegas Recap: Barry, Liberace and Perspective

You would think that when you’ve been alive forever, and when your name is music, that you would continue to write the songs. But near as I can tell, that’s not what happened to Barry Manilow.

We saw Barry in Vegas (The Music and Passion show!), and you can’t help but notice that all those catchy melodies pretty much stopped as the 80’s were gaining steam. That’s not unusual in pop music – the flavor of the day changes regularly – except that Manilow wasn’t a singer, he was a songwriter.

Often with songwriters, even when they’re not cranking out their own hits, they’re cranking them out for others. Dolly Parton, Bruce Hornsby, and even that grimy chick from 4 Non Blonds – they all cranked out tunes after the spotlight quit shining on them. Manilow was the premiere songwriter for a decade, and was in his youth. So why are so so many of his albums just covers of songs from various decades?

I suspect the muse has left the building. For better or worse, it has been replaced by a certain amount of perspective, which tends to dampen those emotions that gush a little more freely when adulthood is a newer phenomenon. The excitement, despair, melancholy and god knows what other fuel is in shorter supply. What comes naturally is still possible, but it’s a lot more work.

And the Vegas trip was much the same. We had a huge group join us in Vegas this weekend, and by any standard measure I’d have to say it was the best group trip we’ve ever had. There were some killer events, both on and off the casino floor, and some great opportunities to reconnect with friends and family that we don’t see nearly as often as we used to.

And yet….

Perspective gets in the way. Our stupidity is a little more limited, our need for each other not quite as severe, our reality a little more separate. In the past, Vegas wasn’t as partitioned from our world, just a slightly crazier extension of it. Now, it’s not even close. Vegas used to be our reality on steroids. Now it fees like a movie we’re watching – still fun, but not as guttural.

But boy, was it one solid four days. Our goal was four solid days of irresponsibility and I think we mostly succeeded. So in honor of Barry, and the perspective that we gain whether we like it or not, let’s review the weekend by remembering some of Barry’s greatest hits.

Mandy – The concert didn’t produce any surprise special guests, unless you count Barry singing Mandy as a duet with a much younger version of himself. Playing a clip from Midnight Special, Manilow accompanied the younger version with a dueling piano and a slightly more “Vegas” feel.

Our trip had a special guest too. About five minutes after we checked into NYNY we ran into my brother Jeff. That would have been a surprise all by itself since he’s married with children and wasn’t supposed to be on the trip. It was a little more than a surprise considering that he is married with children in Melbourne, Australia. Turns out that he, my family and most of my friends had conspired to keep his trip a secret from me.

After catching up, Jeff went to check in, and The Voice Of Reason™ and I took the elevator to our room.

TG: Wow. Silence. Wow. Silence. I guess the ante has been raised on this weekend, huh?
TVOR: Yep. Silence. I’m not going to see you again this weekend, am I?
TG: No. No, you’re not.
TVOR: No. No, I’m not.

It’s a Miracle! – To the most miraculous stat of the weekend – 4 days, 3 nights, 0 hangovers. I’m giving full credit on two of those three nights to the ultra-doughy deep dish pizza they serve at NYNY until 3 AM. But Friday morning – that required divine intervention. I consider that to be the surest sign yet in my short existence that god exists. Somewhere around 10:45 AM I finally agreed we’re now even for that whole Drew Pearson push off thing.

And speaking of Thursday night, things are a little fuzzy, but I’m almost sure that at some point our wait staff started dancing seductively on the bar in tiny little leather outfits. It was like a cross between the Drew Carey show and Wicked pictures. I’m almost sure this happened. If anyone else remembers this, I’d sure appreciate some reassurance.

Copacabana – To the hottest bar north of Havana, I dedicate La Fontana bar at the Bellagio. NOT inside. Inside it feels a little like a wedding reception most times. Let me be a bit more vivid. Like a wedding reception where your angry overweight aunt is scaring everyone off the dance floor while the wedding band is playing .38 Special. Hold on loosely, indeed.

No, go outside, order a glass or two of overpriced port, and sit back and watch the Bellagio’s fountain show through a few interludes. It plays every 15-20 minutes, and it’s a wonder, an impressive combination of art, engineering and thousands of gallons of spurting water in the middle of a dessert. I was asked by a guy on the plane what he should do with his one night in Vegas. I told him to start it there.

Somewhere Down the Road – One of the more touching moments in the concert was when Barry sang this alone on a stool with very little accompaniment, but mostly what struck us all was how the sentiment just dripped with the blindness of youth.

That little look back in time was echoed Saturday, as four younger guys walked toward us heading to the food court. As they staggered past, it was clear that they weren’t just hungry – they NEEDED food. Three of them held their Miller Lites, but the fourth one, the one that took two steps sideways for every step forward, was desperately trying to rally with a mostly empty can of Red Bull. None of which would’ve been all that unusual if it wasn’t 11:30 AM. Dripping with youth indeed.

Ready to Take a Chance Again – To the song that Barry, inexplicably and inexcusably left out of the concert, I dedicate The Liberace Museum, which I inexplicably and inexcusably skipped on Saturday. It may be the ultimate Vegas experience - schlocky, cheesy, hilarious and while still just tiniest bit creepy.

Ships – We’re two ships that pass in the night, but it isn’t alright. This song goes out to the half dozen bartenders who managed to completely piss me off this weekend. Here’s what you DON’T know - I was gonna order a beer. I switched to that ridiculously tedious drink I ordered only after I watched you consciously ignore me for 15 minutes. Hope you enjoyed shredding and crushing those mint leaves.

I Write the Songs – To Bob, who was the driving force behind the weekend. For his 40th birthday Bob decided two years ago that all of us were going to Vegas to watch Barry Manilow. 22 people answered the call, and several of them arranged activities like Barry, The Liberace Museum and Spamalot. This weekend Bob was the music, and I for one, hope he’s around forever.

That’s this year’s Vegas recap. Next time, I PROMISE there will be some live updates while I’m there, now that I finally figured out exactly how to work this whole high speed internet thing. If you’ve been in Twins withdrawal, stop on back tomorrow, and I’ll try and get back on the horse. See ya then…

Bus #4

OK, I know I didn't publish Friday. I'm sorry, but I had trouble logging into Blogger in Vegas. What's more, I'm not putting the final Vegas story up until tomorrow, because it isn't finished. And I can't even replace it with a Twins Take, because I have no idea what has been going on regarding baseball for the last four days. So instead, I found this story which I'm not sure I've ever published. We'll see you tomorrow.



“When your mom and I first moved here, we would always watch Monday Night Football with Bobby Jackson, Jimbo, Uncle Jeff and Kapa at that place.”

“Was it fun?”

More fun that I can tell her. I think I’ll leave out the part about the enormous $1.50 plastic mugs, the 2 AM phone calls berating “lame” (translation: “sober” or "sensible") friends, and the fruitless search for late night eats that once resulted in eating (shudder) carrot omelets. (I repeat, once.) She has plenty of time to learn about that later.

I find myself on a date with my two favorite girls, only one of which is sitting next to me. The other one is waiting for us at home, but her presence is tangible as we rumble past some of our old haunts. I wonder if I’ll ever travel through Uptown and not have her with me.

“Your mom and I lived just a couple blocks that way. Jimbo was our roommate. Our parents thought we were crazy.”

“Why?”

“Once you get married, people don’t expect you to share an apartment with someone else. But we loved it.”

True to form from my single days, I’ve made a mess of this date. I was supposed to drive downtown to work today, but forgot and took the bus. This means that when I picked up The Chatty Chatty Princess™ from choir practice at the Basilica, we needed to ride the pokey #4 bus down Lyndale to get home. At night. In the rain. Fortunately, as also often happened in my single days, my date is rising to the occasion.

“Dad, do you know where Minnehaha School is?”

“You mean Minnehaha Academy? Yes. You took ice skating lessons there a couple of times. You hated it.”

“I got a notice from school that they’re giving lessons again.” She pauses. “Do you remember the time that you were little and mom wanted to ice skate with you, but you couldn’t ice skate and so you didn’t go?”

I can’t believe she remembers that story. When did I tell her about that? “That wasn’t your mom. That was a different little girl. I was only 10. I didn’t meet your mom for another 12 years.”

“Oh. So you were 22 when you met mom?”

Yes, I was. A week away from turning 23. And as if she hasn’t become a big enough part of this night already, now a reality exists in which I’ve known her since I was 10. (Why not? God knows I felt like that when I first met her.)

“So, um, I’ve heard from two girls in my class that a boy likes me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Uh-huh. Kyle. First Marianna heard him say that, and she told me, and then I told Ariel, and she talked to him, and he said that to her, and she told me too.”

So that’s what this night is about. Boy, am I stupid. We’re not on a date – we’re on a double date. Each of us with our non-present significant others.

“So what should I do? Should I walk up to him and ask him if he likes me?”

Why are you asking me kid? Did I mention my idea of a date is a public bus ride down Lyndale in the rain while I openly reminisce about the other girl in my life?

“No. He might get scared. What would you do if there was girl that wanted to be your friend?”

“I’d just start acting like we’re already friends.”

“Do that with Kyle. At the very least, he’ll likely be a friend. And maybe he’ll end up being your boyfriend.”

“Dad!", she scolds, "I’m only eight years old. I’m too young to be thinking about boyfriends."

Apparently none of us are ever too young.

Or too old.

Pre-Vegas Thoughts

Hey gang,

Incredibly short entry today as I'm basically cranking it out before the plane leaves for Vegas. Sorry to not blog Twins today, especially when there is such a fruitful topic such as the end of contract talks for Morneau.

Alright, I can't stand it. A quick take - WE ALREADY HAVE A FOUR YEAR CONTRACT WITH MORNEAU. Only it's called arbitration. And the only difference is that now neither side knows exactly how much it will cost (though they both have a pretty good idea). If the team's option year for the fifth year isn't included, it's exactly the same as the current situation from the fan's point of view.

My gawd I get tired of this sort of thing. The same thing happened when the Twins were negotiating with Hunter. Not having a four-year deal in place means almost nothing to the fans. It means a something to the Twins, but usually it only means a couple of million dollars a year, and the Twins can save that a dozen different ways.

It should be a lot more than that to the player, but if he doesn't want the deal, great. No guaranteed deal removes a huge risk from the plate of the Twins. If those concussions symptoms come back, and the future looks shaky, the Twins aren't committed to an eight figure salary.

Ok, that's it. I woulld encourage you to stop by www.MNGameDay.com to see some of the other GameDay writer's takes, and to track all your favorite Twins blogs (and maybe a couple you haven't seen yet). I'll be back tomorrow, or possibly even later today. I'd appreciate any karma you can send my way this weekend.

Money on Both Sides

Bringing back one veteran starting pitcher was deemed necessary. Gambling on another was judged prudent. Signing a third seemed a little overzealous. But as one of the most highly touted prospects in the minors continues to throw pills past hitters, it's natural to ask - why not start the kids?

It turns out that just as their is a financial incentive to rush youngsters onto the major league roster, there is also an incentive against it, and it can be similarly lucrative. To understand it, you need to understand exactly how service time works and how it affects players salaries and team payrolls.

Every day a player is on a major league roster (or on the DL from a major league roster), they're earning service time. Service time is tracked in years and days, and you can find how much service time a player has at Cott's, an indispensable baseball resource. For instance, if you click over there and look at the Twins, you'll find this:

Justin Morneau 1b
1 year/$4.5M (2007)

• re-signed 2/07 (avoided arbitration, $5M-$4M)
• 1 year/$0.385M (2006), re-signed 3/06
• 1 year/$0.345M (2005), re-signed 3/05
• drafted 1999 (3-89), $0.29M signing bonus
• agent: SFX
• ML service: 2.168

That last bullet point means that Morneau has 2 years and 168 days service time. (To be honest, I don't know how many days constitute a year, but I assume it's around 175 or 180). That's less than three years, which is significant, because there are two points on the service time clock that are VERY important to ballplayers and their teams.

6.000 (Six years)

A player who ends the season with a six full years of service time can become a free agent. This is why it is so important that Morneau is just short of three years of service time right now. When the 2009 season ends, Morneau will have 5 years and 168 days of service time. Which means he won't be eligible for free agency until after 2010 and should (knock, knock) be able to play in the new ballpark (knock, knock).

~2.135 (About two years and 135 games)

A player who ends the season with about two years and 135 games of service time is eligible for arbitration for the first time, meaning a several million dollar raise ala Joe Mauer and Morneau this year. That's significant to one other young Twins player...

Remember how last year Jason Bartlett was sent down to Rochester at the end of spring training? And nobody could believe it? Coincidentally Bartlett had earned 148 days of service time prior to last year. If he had been with the Twins from the beginning of the year, he would have undoubtedly been eligible for arbitration after this year.

But, because he spent two months in Rochester, he finished last season with one year and 86 games. Which means that even after this year, he’ll still be a full year away from arbitration. That could save the Twins a couple of million dollars in 2008. And 2009. And 2010.

There’s no evidence that the Twins took this into consideration. In fact, it was reported that they offered to put Bartlett on the disabled list to begin the season, which would have extended his service time. Also, had they really just been trying to dodge an early arbitration, they could have called him up at the end of April and still accomplished that goal.

But it's probably wasn't an unpleasant side effect.

Which brings us to Matt Garza, who enters the year with 55 days of service time. If the Twins can wait until the end of May to call him up, they'll delay his ability to become a free agent until after 2013, instead of 2012. And if they can wait until shortly after the All-Star break to call him up, they'll delay his arbitration date until after 2010, which means he'll still be pitching for peanuts just as the Twins are facing Mauer's and Morneau's free agency. The future savings for keeping a high-impact rookie like Garza in the minors for another half year could be a couple of million dollars per year.

It's easy to see the obvious costs of signing veterans could probably be replaced by a rookie. But beyond the risks that it includes, there are costs down the road that might otherwise be mitigated. A tweak in a rookie's service time, made possible by a veteran carrying the load for just a few extra weeks, can provide a significant financial windfall.

Twins Takes

• Machado is going to start the year on the DL (savvy move for a Rule V guy) and Gardenhire seems to have talked himself out of "needing" a new backup shortstop or necessarily keeping Alexi Casilla on the roster. (Casilla, by the way, has 31 days of service time. )
• That's all great news. What isn't great news is that my research about who the Twins might trade for as a backup shortstop likely won't see the light of day. I still think I'm coming out ahead.
• If you're not stopping by MNGameday.com for the GameDay writers and the updated list of Twins blogging posts, you're missing some good stuff.
• Speaking of good stuff, Friday's and Monday's posts should be interesting, as The Voice of Reason™ and I will be spending a long weekend in Las Vegas. If you're looking for Twins news, there likely won't be much. If you're looking for drunken debauchary and disconnected ponderings, welcome home.
• My favorite comment of the week come from T Dog: "My real question is what do Perkins & Garza have to do to make the rotation? Bounce around the majors for 10 years and then sign a minor league contract with the Twins?"

Thanks for stopping by. We'll see you tomorrow.

Yo, New York! We gotchyer MVP right HERE!

(Why Morneau deserved the American League MVP)

History tells us that Ty Cobb was awarded the American League Most Valuable Player award unanimously in 1911. History declines to mention the name of the scribe that ranted five minutes afterwards about how Eddie Walsh was robbed, but I think we can safely assume that happened.

More recently, lambasting the baseball writers’ choice has shifted from pastime to bad habit. Now the outrage emulates from every corner of the baseball universe as bloggers, statisticians, fans and sportwriters scramble for a new viewpoint on one of the oldest debates in baseball. If you don’t have a differing viewpoint on the MVP, you’re robbing yourself of an easy story, as well as a chance to storm the moral high ground.

So I guess we should have expected the reaction we received this December when Justin Morneau won the closest MVP vote since 2001. Morneau edged out Derek Jeter by 14 points, or the equivalent of one first place vote.

And the chum hit the water.

In the feeding frenzy that followed, we were told that the writers overvalued power numbers. That they undervalued defense. They overvalued a team’s record. But they undervalued leadership. We were told that we should consider a player’s lifetime of work. And that pitchers should win. And that Morneau wasn’t the most valuable Twin. And that he wasn’t even the second most valuable Twin.

Nobody thought that Morneau didn’t warrant consideration, but they all agreed that the baseball writers had used the wrong criteria. And had they used the right criteria, the award would have gone to Jeter. Or David Ortiz or Frank Thomas or Jermaine Dye or Johan Santana or…

Sorry guys. It turns out that the MVP isn’t defined the way you might want it defined. It isn’t an award for the best offensive stats or the preferred sabremetric stat of the day. It isn’t an award for the best player or even “The Most Valuable Player”. It isn’t defined by a rule book or metric or baseball czar. It isn’t even defined by this year’s baseball writers.

The MVP award is defined by its history, and more heavily by its recent history. It’s defined by a historical collection of opinions that have shaped it little by little for the last 100 years. If you want to know what an MVP is, you look at who its been awarded to. And so you find the criteria:

“Most valuable” beats out “best” – This isn’t an award for the best baseball stats, whether you’re using something traditional like RBI or more advanced like VORP. A player who has the best statistics will finish second to a player that may have put up slightly smaller stats in more critical situations. Or to a player that was the critical difference between his team making or missing the postseason.

A starting pitcher doesn’t get the award unless they have an absolutely ungodly year – The Cy Young started being awarded in 1956, and soon after, the MVP has been almost exclusively reserved for position players. Only one starting pitcher has won it has since the mid-70s – Roger Clemens in 1986.

It’s not a lifetime achievement award – It’s based on what a player did for a given year. It’s not uncommon for a fairly mediocre player to win the award based on an absolutely exceptional year (see Versalles, Zoilo). A lifetime’s worth of success probably helps, especially for a player who is popular with sportswriters, but the lifetime achievement award is called “The Hall of Fame”.

Defense gets extra points, but offense is more important – This has shifted a little, as a few of the more recent awardees have been shortstops, but when an award has been given to Mo Vaughn, I think we can all agree that defense might not be the top consideration.

Team success counts – A player gets extra credit for a team that achieves. This is especially true if the team isn’t loaded with other superstars.

God knows there’s plenty of room to debate those rules, but there isn’t a lot of doubt that they are, in fact, the rules. So let’s evaluate:

• Morneau was one of the top performers in the league in a year that nobody else stood out.
• He didn’t just put up big numbers, he consistently performed in important situations.
• His young team went from execrable to division champion at exactly the time he started hitting well.

Delayed Justice

It’s more painful because we remember it so well from last year.

The underperforming veterans returned to validate all our doubts in spring, but were still handed a starting job. Their struggles continued and seemingly infected the rest of the team. Finally, after a couple of dismal months, they were replaced with the younger players that we all knew should have been there in the first place. It was recognized, both internally and externally, as the turning point for the team.

The names have changed, but the story is the same. Instead of Kyle Lohse, Juan Castro and Tony Batista, Twins fans (and impartial baseball observers) are wondering why the Twins are wasting their time with Carlos Silva, Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson. Those three pitchers were terrible last year and Silva and Ponson haven’t demonstrated any legitimate signs of improvement this spring.

So the most maddening part to Twins fans isn’t that Twins seem dedicated to these reclamation projects. (Hey, we’re all about reclamation projects. Haven’t you read the press clippings?) The maddening part is that the Twins don’t seem to have learned anything from last year. Or at least nothing beyond “We can get away with putting inferior veterans on the field for the first two months.”

Which would be tragic except for one thing: I'm not totally sure that they're wrong.

Starting the crappy veterans while keeping the kids in Rochester does have some benefits, (and you can be sure that everyone involved is listing them). It keeps early expectations off the kids, letting them get hungry in Rochester while building some momentum and confidence. It gives the organization extra depth, since some of those veterans would need to be released if not handed a spot now. That’s especially handy when injuries inevitably strike. Finally it also puts pressure on the veterans to perform. We could come up with a half dozen more.

Hogwash? It kind of feels like it, doesn't it? But the bottom line is that it worked really well last year. I don't believe Jason Bartlett "learned" anything of use with his demotion to Rochester, but his promotion did correspond with a torrid hitting streak that eased everyone's doubts, including his own. I don't think having Batista lunge (lounge?) around at the hot corner helped Nick Punto, but then I didn't think Punto would be a productive regular third baseman. And how can anyone argue with how Francisco Liriano turned out before he was hurt.

Of course, it also means starting guys who sure seem washed up for the first six weeks. But what does that cost the team? Maybe a slight downgrade of talent for 40 games? Which might cost them a couple of games, maybe? And will likely be corrected with 120+ game left? We may need to understand that an Opening Day spot doesn’t guarantee anyone 33 starts. For Silva/Ponson/Ortiz, it likely doesn’t mean more than a six start trial.

So while it’s not the way I would do things, I’m not sure that starting the season with The Triumvercrap is the worst idea. After all, the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. While it feels a little Orwellian to make an argument that less is more, given their success last year, this organization probably has earned a delayed sentence.

Round One (XII)

It’s a tradition – the decadence that is the first round of the NCAA tournament. What isn’t a tradition is blogging, live, from a bar. Thank God for Wi-Fi.…..

The Ride Over – I’m climbing into my car about an hour and a half later than I wanted, but the grumpiness is washed away by the euphoria. There may be a higher plane reached later today, but this moment is why I do this. The tickled feeling you get from leaving work, meeting friends, and ordering that first afternoon beer is literally the whole reason I do this. Everything else may or may not happen. But this is the moment I can count on.

The Entry – I arrive at Senser’s, and the people I can count on. Michele, Bob and The Voice of Reason™. Michele always shows and Bob always runs the bracket and arranges the table. But TVOR is the reason is the reason I’m still going.

Raised in Philly and an alum of a Big 5 school, she loves this damn thing. There are years I think I can’t leave work, or arranging the sitters is a hassle, or work is just too hectic. And so I start to hedge, and she never hesitates – she signs off on the sitter, promises to be there at noon, and deals with the kids in between the games. She is a machine. I had to look a thousand miles to find her. It was worth it.

The Lunch – The waitress makes sure to offer me the extra cheese, waffle fries, and seasoned sour cream. TVOR points out that the same waitress offered her none of these. We decide that “I look like I like cheese.” I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Standford – The first thing I notice as I look at the games it that the Cardinal are losing big to Louisville, and they’re not going to rebound. That’s not good news for The Boy™, who filled out his first pool of his life last night. My little future math major decided that “maybe an 11 will beat a 6”. Or, maybe (as Matt says) they’ll lose by “plenty to ugly”.

TT– There are only a few minutes left in Texas Tech’s loss to Boston College when I realize I haven’t seen Bobby Knight yet. Nobody else at the table has noticed him either. Surprisingly, he hasn’t been tossed, he’s just not really participating. His team makes a couple of bone-headed plays at the end of the game when deciding not to foul a team. I wonder if he’s just done. Or maybe has been for a while.

Davidson vs. Maryland – Davidson keeps it close, but it’s not a great game, or at least not between great team. Eventually, it becomes clear that Davidson has one scorer and he’s out of gas. Maryland finishes them off and we’re heading to the second set of games.

Bracket Tally - After the first set of games, the leader in our family is The Chatty, Chatty Princess™. I’m tied with “The Blind Monkey”, the randomly generated bracket that we use for especially severe ridicule. Bob, our tournament organizer is even worse.

Georgetown – Within the first sixty seconds, Georgetown’s point guard Anthony Sapp has three Belmont Bruins scrambling around him to steal the ball, and he never picks up the dribble. That’s all I need to see. I love this kid. Belmont plays the Hoyas very tough for the first 12 minutes, but Georgetown just eventually beats them down. Belmont was a much better team than I thought, but it wasn’t close. Georgetown is impressive.

Penn – With 19:44 second remaining in the first half, TVOR announces that she’s happy she didn’t pick Penn. For the record, that means the Big Five fan turned her back on them 16 seconds after the game started. And I can’t blame here. Listed among Penn’s “Big Wins” were Yale and LaSalle. La Salle finished last in the A-10.

To Penn’s credit, they come back big time versus Texas A & M, providing the only real excitement of the afternoon. But after taking the lead, the Aggies score something like the next 10 points. Game over. Sorry Quakers.

The Memory – Bob tells me that in our youth we went to party, and decided that our jobs of systems guys weren’t going to cutit. So we decided to go as rival toothbrush salesmen. I would apparently draw people into a conversation, and tell them that in a couple of months, we were going to introduce “something big”. Then I would confidentially tall them “In a couple of months, you are NEVER going to have to FLOSS AGAIN.”

For the record, I remember none of this. There is at least a 50% chance that Bob is dreaming all this up to see if I pretend I remember. He’s that brilliant.

Butler – The Bulldogs find themselves in a defensive dog fight against Old Dominion. And by defensive, I mean Big Ten on ‘ludes. kinda defensive. The score is 20-19 at half. Then Pete Campbell, a 6’ 7” forward, drains four straight threes from half a dozen feet beyond the arc, and that’s it. In that kind of a defensive battle, it’s game over.

Washington State – The kid can play ball – he was the difference maker in today’s win over Oral Roberts – but that doesn’t change the fact that Derrick Low’s moustache is EXACTLY like the one my friend Craig Stanton grew in 7th grade.

George Washington – The bloggers show for the final game of the afternoon, since Will Young is a GW alum. It doesn’t go well. I’ll spare you the gory details, but suffice to say that Will stops seething at halftime long enough to spit out that this is “a rebuilding year”, so you can guess how that game went.

As the first two rounds of games end, one of the TVs switches to the girl’s high school basketball tournament. TVOR takes that opportunity to turn purple and spit fire. Good lord, I love this woman. And so I think I’ll spend the rest of the night watching some basketball with her. See you on Monday.

All Wet

Ask a fish about water sometime. They can talk endlessly about the stuff and they’re smarter than you think. Temperature, viscosity, transparency – they’re experts on it all, including traits that would never occur to us. But there’s one pretty basic characteristic of water that they never understand, no matter how much you explain it. (And don’t think I haven’t tried.)

The don’t understand “wet”.

The lesson, as always, is that I spend way too much time thinking about random things. And it’s a sickness. And I’m crying out for help. But the other lesson is that even when you dedicate your life to studying something, that very act can leave you blind to something pretty basic.

Ron Gardenhire dedicated his early life to being a shortstop, and one wonders if that hasn’t blinded him in some ways. Gardenhire’s major league career was over by the time he was 27 years old, so he likely spent some time thinking about how some teams could really use another true backup shortstop, like he was. And a lot of the time, he was probably right.

But that need isn’t as clear right now for the Twins. They came into camp with at least one backup shortstop in Nick Punto, who has played shortstop throughout his major league career. Luis Rodriguez did too, playing regularly at shortstop until he arrived in Rochester. But Gardenhire has declared that Punto won’t serve as a backup, and Rodriguez can’t handle shortstop, so the question being asked is who the backup shortstop is going to be.

The more interesting question is why there aren’t any real candidates in camp. That’s not the kind of thing that is difficult to pick up during the offseason. Was the front office not aware of Gardenhire’s views?

The Twins did choose Alejandro Machado in the rule V draft, but no competitive team hands a Rule V draftee a job before spring training. That would seem to be especially true for a team managed by Gardenhire who attaches the prefix “veteran” to “backup shortstop” as if they’re one long word.

The problem with giving veteran middle infielders to Gardenhire is his track record for doing such silly things with them. Last year’s infatuation with Juan Castro didn’t end until Castro was traded away. Actually, judging from statements early this spring, it still hasn’t. While playing the Reds, Gardenhire openly pined for Castro again, talking about how the Reds gave Castro a two-year deal.

Which raises the question whether the front office didn’t provide Gardenhire with a veteran option on purpose. Which further raises the question whether Gardenhire wants a veteran backup shortstop because he refuses to move Punto, or whether he refuses to move Punto because he wants another veteran backup shortstop?

At this point, does it matter? If there’s one thing we know about Gardenhire, it’s that he isn’t afraid to be stubborn about this sort of thing. If you weren’t convinced by Bartlett’s demotion last year, perhaps the words “Corky Miller” will ring a bell? The Twins waived Michael Restovich so Gardy could keep a fourth catcher on the roster.

So what options does the front office have? Machado is supposedly going to be playing soon, but the smart money is that he won’t be the manager’s first choice. Gardenhire is already talking up Alexi Casilla, which puts Terry Ryan in the position of planting the 22-year-old on the Twins bench while the prospect’s service clock ticks and skills atrophy.

Hmmm. Or I suppose Ryan could trade for a veteran backup shortstop….

See? I told you fish were smarter than you think.

Twins Takes
On Monday, the Twins pounded Dontrelle Willis for six runs in a couple of innings. Also on Monday, the Cubs announced that Mark Prior would pitch in “B” squad games until he regains his confidence.

Two young pitchers who had instantaneous success in the majors. Two young pitchers who had boundless ceilings. And two young pitchers who never really regained the promise they showed so early and so young.

And neither of them had to undergo Tommy John surgery.

I think forward to 2008, and I think of a rotation of Johan Santana, Franciso Liriano, Matt Garza and Boof Bonser with another young gun like Glen Perkins or Kevin Slowey holding down the fifth spot. And involuntarily, I get giddy. And then I see a day like Monday, and I wonder if Liriano will ever be the same.

Deep down, I know the answer is no. That half season’s performance was so good that the reigning Cy Young winner look like an underachiever. To expect anything close is silly at best, damaging at worst.

But let’s hope Liriano fares better than a couple of the other young phenoms who burned so bright so early.

A Guide for the Bracketly Challanged

“Another damn NCAA column? How about some baseball? Must we all talk about college baseketball 24/7? Will nothing stop the (March) madness!!!”

There, I saved you the work of an angry comment about a non-baseball article. Hey, I’m the Twins Geek, so I feel your pain. But if the NCAA tournament isn’t the greatest event in sports today, it’s at least the greatest gimmick in sports today. You – yes, even you -can get into it, too. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll assimilate just fine. You might even enjoy it.

(And if you’re looking for a baseball angle, understand that most major leaguers are paying as much attention to their brackets as to the race for the last roster spot. Plus, there’s a Twins Take at the bottom. But only if you plow through the rest….)

Step 1: Take half of Thursday and all of Friday off work.
You may think you’re too cynical. You may thing you’re too mature. You may think this is a waste of time. None of these are true.

It is never a waste of time to watch a bunch of kids play under bright lights (many for the first and last time), pursuing a dream. You may believe that major college sports are thinly disguised professional leagues, and for half the teams this may be true. But there is NO WAY you can’t get behind a Central Connecticut State, or a team named the “Salukis”.

Unless of course, you didn’t pick them in your bracket. Which brings us to Step 2…

Step 2. Fill out a bracket.
Find someone – a friend, a guy at work, a web site – someone who is running a bracket pool and join the fray. You may not be an expert, but it doesn’t matter. For the next three weeks people are going to be talking about this thing, and it’s so much more fun it you have some stake in the outcome. Consider the entry fee a ticket to a social life.

Besides, it isn’t that hard to have a decent showing with just a few tips. Just the last tip below will likely put you in the top half of your pool. Invest an hour in the rest, and you could see your name hanging around the top of the standings for the next several weeks.

Tip: Find a nice short summary of each team – They’re in most papers, and they need to be written before the conference tournaments, so they’re more objective than most of the coverage you’ll see. Just put a “+” next to the teams that mention:
- good defensive reputations
- solid guards, especially if they have one with a lot of assists
- a lot of seniors
- a really good center
Put a “-“ next to the teams that have
- the words “run and gun” in their description
- haven’t played many other teams in the tourney
- have given up a lot of points.

Tip: Lose the hype – For the first round (and only the first round), put a “-“ next to a team if they won their tournament or if you see them mentioned anyplace as a sleeper or favorite. These are college kids, after all. They’ve been digesting this stuff, whether they want to or not, and are due for a let down. Alternately, if a team was supposed to win their tournament but failed, plan on a pretty decent first game for them. (But they may let down their guard in the second round).

Tip: Don’t get carried away with the underdogs – The rankings are pretty accurate. You need to really like an underdog to pick them, even in the first round. They want to pick them to go further, but understand that they almost never do. Maybe it’s the euphoria of the big win, or maybe the big programs become familiar with them after watching them play, but almost no underdogs make it past the Sweet Sixteen. The real key to a great story is knowing when to end it.

The Last Tip: Know your bracket’s scoring system – If you do nothing else than understand your bracket’s scoring system and pick accordingly, you’ll still end up in the top half of the pool. About 80% of all brackets greatly favor picking either underdogs or favorites.

If a bracket isn’t rewarding you, and I mean REALLY rewarding you for picking underdogs, then don’t pick many underdogs. If the big points come from the Final Four or championship, make damn sure favorites ends up in those spots. You’re allowed to work backwards in these things.

Step 3: Watch the first round with friends.
How many friends do you need? It depends on how hoops crazy they are. If they’re legitimately nuts, one will do. But more is always better.

I highly recommend starting at noon on Thursday, if for no other reason than you are sitting, watching basketball, and yacking with your friends at noon on Thursday. It’s just so deliciously slacker.

The bigger question is where you watch the games. There are 3-4 games at almost all times, and CBS will pick one for your market and then only go to other games if they are close. Ideally, you’ll want a place with at least three TVs and a satellite package that shows all the games. I prefer a bar, partly because I like to talk to the rest of the hoopheads about the games, too.

The bottom line is this isn’t a sporting event. It’s a week long party, culminating in a two-day celebration of youthful exuberance. Do yourself a favor and try and dig up some of your own. You won’t regret it.

Twins Takes
Jeromy Burnitz, who played for the Pirates last year and replaced Sammy Sosa with the Cubs before that, retired on Sunday. Every spring there are veterans who don’t get offers and are forced to retire, and that’s been the case this season as well. Twins fans will remember Phil Nevin from the end of last season, and he’s being joined by past stars Eric Young and Brian Jordan.

But Burnitz had one thing going for him that none of these other guys did – he hit left-handed. His numbers dove last year, but he still hit 15 home runs against right-handed pitchers in 255 at-bats. With the 25th roster spot suddenly open, one can’t help but notice that biggest left-handed power threat on the Twins bench is Jason Tyner, who hasn’t hit a home run in 1052 major league at-bats.

I assume that the Twins have done their homework here, and that Burnitz really is finished. But for all the designated hitters that the Twins brought into camp, the only left-handed option is Garret Jones, who continues to be just miserable. I assume that neither of them are the answer, but the Twins would probably be better served by adding someone like them than a twelfth pitcher or second backup infielder.

Lingering Injuries

They keep telling us that Matt Garza’s neck is just stiff, but they can’t fool me. It’s some degenerative spinal injury, requiring at least a half year’s worth of rehab.

And that’s if we’re suddenly lucky. For some major league franchises, the cost of the minor leagues is just the cost of doing business. To the Twins, it’s an investment. The millions of dollars that are spent in salaries, scouting, per diems and signing bonuses are quickly recouped when a high-impact rookie provides millions of dollars worth of production for pennies on the dollar.

For instance, for the numbers that Justinn Morneau and Joe Mauer put up last year, a good chunk of teams would have been happy to pay $10 million. Each. And then they would’ve toasted their good fortune.

The Twins paid them $785,000. Combined. Which means that the Twins previous investments in the minor leagues provided at least a $19 million return for the organization, just for those two players. That’s the kind of return that low-revenue, low-payroll teams need be competitive.

Unfortunately, the Twins ability to leverage those investments has been limited due to a nearly unprecedented string of year-long injuries to high ceiling prospects. The Twins have had four players in the last few years who were considered elite prospects, an impressive number for any organization. But so far only Garza had managed to stay relatively healthy (knock, knock).

Joe Mauer’s knee cost him almost all of 2004. Jason Kubel’s knee cost him almost all of 2005 and ultimately most of 2006. Francisco Liriano’s elbow cost him half of 2006 and all of 2007. And the concussion from a bean-ball, along with a series of offseason plagues, didn’t keep Justin Mornea from playing 2005, but likely cost him a year of development.

Of course, injuries are a part of the game, and it isn’t difficult to find other teams who had players that suffered year-long injuries. You might even be able to find another team with year-long injuries to four high-impact players. But you’ll need to look long and hard to find a team that had worse timing.

That’s because what REALLY hurts a team like the Twins is that they all happened within the first two years of each player’s major league careers. Injuries those two years minimize the return a team receives from their minor league investments. But they hurt just as much years after the player has healed, because it makes it unlikely that a club can sign their high-impact players to a long-term contract that is below market value.

There is no better time for a ballclub to approach a rising star about a long-term deal than after their second complete season as major leaguer. Up to that point, the player has made close to the major league minimum, probably in the neighborhoold of $300-400,000 per year. That’s some nice ching to be sure, but it’s likely not enough to make sure they’ll never need a real job. They still have one more year to play before their first year of arbitration, which is where a star player can suddenly make several million dollars.

If the club offers the player a multi-year guaranteed deal after two years, they’re offering a lifetime of security a year earlier than the player would otherwise receive it. And all they’re asking in return is for the ballplayer to be a little less filthy rich over the next few years. It makes a ton of sense for both the ballplayer and the club to agree to that kind of a deal.

But because of early injuries, the Twins have yet to agree to that kind of deal with any of their young impact players. Everyone talked about locking up Maure and Morneau this year, but the time to negotiate with them was last offseason, before they reached arbitration. Unfrotunately, Morneau had underperformed through an injury-plagued year, and Mauer’s knee was still a question mark. Instead, the Twins didn’t get to talk about long-term deals until each one of them was already guaranteed a lifetime of security with their $4 million arbitration settlements.

This spring, Kubel is in the same boat as Mauer and Morneau were last year. You can bet that two years ago the Twins planned on approaching him with a long-term deal this offseason. They can’t, because they don’t know if his knees will remain healthy, or whether he’ll regain his stroke. If he does this year, he’ll get his $3 million whether or not he signs a long-term deal with the Twins. And we’ll be wondering why he and the Twins can’t get a long-term deal done.

And next offseason? Well, Liriano will be finishing his second year – except that he won’t have pitched in the majors for a year-and-a-half. So the Twins won’t be able to comfortably offer him a long-term deal, and will again see if their highly prized prospect breaks out just before his first big pay day. And you wonder why they weren’t anxious to have Liriano go under the knife?

When a star player’s lack of production is taken into account, the cost of an injury for every team is easily in the millions of dollars. That’s already devastating to most low revenue franchises. But the timing of these injuries is even worse, because it’s likely costing the Twins another $1-2 million worth of salary per year than if they could have negotiated a long-term deal at the best possible time. And it’s happened four times.

Is there any doubt the fifth is coming? So when you see pictures of Terry Ryan standing behind Garza in the Twins dugout, delivering a neck massage, don’t be so sure it’s a Photoshop job. That neck rub could be as valuable an investment as the entirety of the Twins minor league payroll.

Twins Takes

All the talk about a backup shortstop made me wonder who exactly played shortstop in Rochester after Jason Bartlett was called up last year. It looks like it was Gil Velasquez, who is at spring training and has had seven at-bats. He hits about as well as you would imagine for a 27-year-old AAA shortstop who you had never heard of before.

Which means that if Machado continues to blow his best chance at a major league job and Gardenhire is serious about not letting Nick Punto back up at shorstop and Terry Ryan is serious about not wanting Alexi Casilla to sit on a bench, we're going to see a deal for a veteran middle infielder this spring. And I can't help wonder if that's what Gardenhire really wanted all along.

The Return of the Screaming Head

I missed you, screaming head. Welcome back.

More to Check Out

If you're back here because of an RSS feed, make sure and check out MNGameDay.com which will be working closely with this site. I think you'll really like it if you're a Twins fan.

When Cheaters Prosper

By John Sharkey

It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught. But what happens if you do get snared? Even then, a surprisingly high amount of the time, the consequences for getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar are mild. Shawne Merriman, the star linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, recently failed a steroid test and received a four-game suspension. This seems like it should be a pretty big deal: one of the best defensive players in the NFL gets busted for cheating.

The backlash, however, was mysteriously mild. The first time I learned about the story, it was on SportsCenter where the analysts were discussing what Merriman’s absence would do to the Chargers’ linebacking depth, as if Merriman had sprained a knee or something. Merriman quickly appealed the suspension and was available to play in the following game. Watching that contest, I saw Merriman make a typically great play, followed by the announcers joking that the Chiefs were probably wishing that Merriman hadn’t appealed: the whole thing was literally a laughing matter.

Remember Rafael Palmeiro? Once upon a time, he was one of the faces of baseball. Then he failed a steroids test and took a fifty-game suspension. That’s slightly longer, proportionally to the length of their seasons, than what Merriman got. But no one was laughing then. Palmeiro was ripped to shreds and black-balled out of baseball. So why the disconnect between his case and Merriman’s?

This pair of suspensions is far from the only example of the double standard that exists between baseball and football when it comes to cheating. The indictment of a doctor under suspicion of distributing steroids revealed that multiple members of the Carolina Panthers more than likely received a shipment of steroids shortly before they played the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Of course, none of the players in question ever failed a drug test, and the story never really gained much traction.

Barry Bonds never failed a drug test either. However, we have a lot of pretty good evidence to suggest that he has indeed taken steroids, and he is (probably rightfully) vilified as a cheater. After all, he’s chasing the numbers of ghosts, not playing in the biggest sporting event in the country.

The World Series drama fizzled out early this year, as a sloppily-played set ended in a five-game St. Louis victory. However, for about two days (which, if my memory serves, were right around the time the Merriman story broke), the biggest storyline of baseball’s championship was some gunk smeared on Kenny Rogers’s hand. A foreign substance on the pitcher’s person is grounds for an automatic ejection and suspension, and the same mysterious substance was seen on Rogers’s hand in his first two playoff starts. This gunk caused some confusing reactions. It is pretty clear that Rogers was cheating, but Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa didn’t press the issue and Rogers continued to pitch. Then later, LaRussa said that he didn’t believe that the stuff on Rogers’s hand was simply a clump of dirt, as the pitcher claimed. He obviously thought that Rogers was cheating, and didn’t do anything about it.

What’s more, much of the public reaction was mild as well, with a lot of the discussion focusing on the old spit-ballers and how wily they were. The gunk is a far more visible example of cheating than are sordid tales of back-room needles, with the cheating taking place in plain sight during the biggest game of the year. Yet another double-standard, this time specific to baseball.

There are many forms of cheating, but we react to them in different ways. Anyone that has ever jaywalked or double parked knows why. We all have a tendency to simply ignore the rules that are inconvenient or inconsequential to us. But this is a tendency we must fight. It’s possible that “right” and “wrong” might exist on a sliding scale, but there is no such thing as “just a little bit illegal” or “mild cheating.” And act is either illegal or it isn’t, and if we act otherwise we might as well throw out the rule books. We can change bad rules and laws, but we cannot ignore them. In the end, syringe or sludge, it’s all dirty.

Why Play Off, When You Can Play On?

Powered By John Sharkey

I never feel any pressure when I am taking a Spanish test. Sure, maybe Spanish is not my best subject. Maybe I am only able to write two coherent pages. But during any given test, I am as pressure-free as a flat tire. After all, even if things go badly that afternoon, there will still be one-hundred and sixty-one other tests to make up for it.

Playoffs are maddening things. You could not invent a more inefficient way to choose a champion (aside from, perhaps, a heated match of rock-paper-scissors). This may be especially true of baseball, but it is true for anything. Professional poker players often readily admit that on any one hand they can be beaten by a novice. If you shortened a game of “H-O-R-S-E” to a game of “H,” any mediocre rec-league warrior could take down Robert Horry with startling regularity. Even playing out the entire word, Big Shot Bob would be fully capable of losing, and losing often.

This warping of reality is the reason statisticians and analysts speak of “sample size.” When the size of the sample is small enough, strange things begin to happen. Suddenly, the predictive power of numbers evaporates. Maybe a die has a one-in-six chance of coming up “four.” But on any one roll, seeing four dots on the top of the die would not surprise everyone. If you roll a hundred fours in a row, then you’d arouse suspicion (see: loaded dice), but for that one isolated flick of the wrist, all bets are off. (Except when you are hanging out with Charles Barkley. He’d give you 10-1 on $15,000.) So the professional poker player doesn’t base anything on one single hand; instead, he plays a conservative game, confident that over the span of enough hands, the true talent will win out.

But even as totally illogical as playoffs are, everyone uses them, so there must be value in them somewhere. Obviously, playoffs are played because they suck people in, but the reason they do so is slightly less clear. Some would argue that the playoff format caters to our underdog-loving sensibilities, and there is some truth to that. We gravitate toward the unlikely, and part of the playoff allure is the fact that Rocky just might take down Apollo. We love that kind of story. Hollywood does not churn out countless movies about pre-season favorites that fulfill expectations, or about handsome, witty, intelligent guys who get the girls. Surely the Rocky Complex explains part of the appeal of playoffs, but it does not tell the whole story.

Life lacks a safety net. While a long regular season may be the best way to determine the superior team, it is also wholly unrealistic. In life, we do not get a couple hundred chances at each task to make sure our natural abilities shine through. That would be the fairest way to do things, but life is not fair. The accountant who makes one mistake—forgets to carry the three just once—does not get to keep trying in order to demonstrate his mathematical prowess. Instead, he gets investigated by the SEC.

One mistake can define a person, no matter how good he usually is. If my Spanish test comes back with a giant “F” scrawled on the top, I will be back in line to re-register next semester. So goes real life, and so go the playoffs. We find riveting drama in the fact that those athletes on the field are facing the same situation that we face every day. “Win or go home” is not just a marketing ploy, it is real. Everyone understands what it is like to face that kind of pressure, and we love watching others deal with it.

Ironically, the best example of this drama is found in a sport that does not use a playoff at all. This distinction is more semantic than anything else, however. College football’s post-season system by be arcane and opaque, but it creates the greatest twelve-round playoff in all of sport. Every single game of the college football season carries with it the pressure of a Game Seven, because one loss is often enough to eliminate a team from national championship contention. And pity the team that loses twice—you can punch their ticket to the Sun Bowl right there. By completely removing the safety net from its regular season, college football creates the most life-like drama possible: the next game is always the most important one, just as each new day is always the most important one of our lives.

The Tigers and Cardinals will play Game One of the World Series today. It is very possible that each team was the worst of their respective league’s playoff quartet. History, however, does not care. Whatever the odds were going in, the Tigers and Cardinals won the games on the field. Calling it “luck,” as some people are wont to do, cheapens their victories, but skill is not exactly the determining factor either. In that thin slice of baseball, every team is equal. Success or failure is a fifty-fifty proposition. A wise man once said that “accidental brilliance is still brilliance,” and that captures the idea of the playoffs perfectly. The playoffs are that feeling we get when we know that there will not be a second try, and whatever happens right now will be defining.

Fair

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Last week, immediately following a dominant performance by the Tigers, we watched Yankees Czar George Steinbrenner wrestle with whether he should fire their manager. We debated with him, recounting Joe Torre’s gaffes (and there were some), evaluating the team’s talent, and remembering his championships. In the end, the Yankees (and I think, most baseball fans) decided that Torre should stay

Yesterday, immediately following a dominant performance by the Tigers, we watched the Athletics Czar Billy Beane fire manager Ken Macha. This time, there was no debate, precious little coverage beforehand, and the reasons were personal. “Success of the year probably didn't have to do with it, but stuff that happened behind the scenes,” said coach Ron Washington.

For a week, we debated the definition of fairness in regard to Torre’s job. Yesterday Beane showed us exactly what fair really was, and it turns out it isn’t pretty. “Fair” is managing a team with $62 million of talent to the second round of the American League playoffs, and getting fired. Fair is managing $200 million of talent that was eliminated a round earlier and getting paid $7 million next year.

Does that sound inconsistent? It’s not. If you’re not seeing the pattern, let me give you a clearer definition: Fair is what your boss thinks of the job you’ve done.

This is a reality that most of us understand from personal experience, and though we might disagree with it in instances, most of us buy into the concept. Our boss evaluates us because they’re as close to our situation as just about anyone. They pay attention, because they have to pay attention. They define fair for us, because someone is defining fair for him or her.

It would be nice if the process was more objective, but it’s rare that most of us have truly objective criteria for our performance. Reaching that standard is usually impossible, and the results are often less than desirable. For instance, we’ll set up tests to objectively evaluate if a teacher is good or not. Then we debate the inevitable effects of those tests, many of which are contrary to a successful education.

Meanwhile, in any given school, ask around who the best and worst teachers are. 80% of all students, parents, administrators and even teachers will agree on the best and worst in each grade. Objective? No. Effective? You decide.

Subjective judgments also often reflect the culture of an organization, which is usually necessary for long-term success. That certainly played a role this week. The Yankees’ decision included balancing their culture of high expectations with the challenges of managing public perception and the media. For the Athletics, Macha suffered from a certain level of isolation from Beane, who is probably more involved with the team than most GMs. “Not to fault either side, but I felt a disconnect on a lot of levels," Beane said.

The dichotomy of the organizations, the process and the outcome highlights a simple truth; we don’t really know these managers. We can watch how they handle a game. We can infer management style from a subset of quotes or anecdotes. This probably adds up to about 15% of the job, if that.

Debating the other 85% can be a lot of fun, but the decision lies where it should. And that’s not a bad definition of fair.

Links of the Day for 10/13/06

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Twins-land may be in full-on Hot Stove Mode, but real baseball continues to be played. Last night, the Mets rode Tom Glavine and Carlos Beltran to a two-zero victory in game one of the NLCS (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=261012121). Without Pedro Martinez, the Mets are going to need a few more nights like that one out of Mr. Glavine: seven shutout, four hits and a couple of walks on just eighty-nine pitches. Beltran cranked a two-run shot in the sixth to provide the margin.

On the other side of the bracket, the Tigers are up two-nothing in the ALCS, but will be without a key part of their bullpen: rookie Joel Zumaya is out with wrist problems (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2006/news/story?id=2622785). It will be interesting to see who fills that role for Detroit while Zumaya is out; he’s been dominant all year.

Game three of that series will pit Kenny Rogers (http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061011&content_id=1708776&vkey=ps2006news&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb) against Rich Harden. Harden has the pure talent to pull this one out for Oakland, of course, but we’ll see if he can shake off the rust. More on Rogers in the Strib here (http://www.startribune.com/509/story/739740.html).

Back in Twins news, Francisco Liriano is going to rehab in Florida (http://www.startribune.com/509/story/731707.html), hoping to avoid surgery. That article also mentions a few other upcoming/already made movies, including the impending decision on Carlos Silva.

And, finally--it’s been a wee bit chilly in the Cities the last few days. That new outdoor stadium will hopefully be hosting plenty of baseball around this time of year, so it’s going to have to be kept warm somehow. The Strib has the scoop (http://www.startribune.com/509/story/739630.html).

The ALCS

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Time to reach into the mailbag...

Hi Gameday,

There’s a game I like to play when the playoffs roll around, and I thought you & your readers might like to play, too (although I’m not leaving much lead time). I make 7 predictions for a series (trying not to be too obvious or too obscure), and need four of them to come true to claim victory. I welcome you to do the same. Here are mine for the ALCS:

1. Jim Leyland, managing in two pitchers’ ballparks, will choose to challenge Frank Thomas rather than pitch around him; no more than four walks for Thomas in the entire series (I'm assuming the series goes to six or seven
games).
2. The bullpens generally will shine, but there will be at least one loss hung on a closer due to a blown save or extra inning game (Todd Jones, Huston Street).
3. Placido Polanco will have to leave a game or miss a game due to injury.
4. Both 3b basemen – Chavez and Inge – will generally struggle at the plate (hitting less than .250 combined, one home run max), but one of them will get an important late inning hit.
5. Craig Monroe will be more productive at the plate than Magglio Ordonez.

6. Kenny Rogers will have the worst start of all the Detroit starters (bonus credit for me if: Jimenez and Scutaro are his biggest problems).
7. Jason Kendall’s relative defensive weakness will be a factor; the Tigers, normally not very speedy, will have at least two players with two or more steals in the series.

-Scott

Ok, I'm game. And I invite readers to give their best shot in the comments. Here's mine:
1. Frank Thomas will be walked intentionally at least three times.
2. There will be at least two shutouts in this series.
3. Rich Harden will get hurt.
4. Joel Zumaya will give up a run.
5. Detroit will come from behind in the late innings to win one game.
6. Esteban Loaiza will not get a win.
7. Detroit will not lose a home game. (And I don't just mean in this series.)

Twins Takes
I'm sure glad I decided to skip Terry Ryan's 2007 Cheat Sheet yesterday and publish Hunters Option(s) yesterday, because today it would have been obsolete. The decision to pick up Hunter's option was basically a foregone conclusion given the risk tolerance of this organization, and given the way Hunter finished the season, it's defensible, and maybe even necessary.

But it doesn't mean that the Twins shouldn't be hustling to find the right-handed #3 or #4 hitter they still need. And there shouldn't be too many untouchables in that search.

Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about Terry Ryan's 2007 Cheat Sheet. I should have it tomorrow.

Hunter's Option(s)

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The Twins reportedly need to decide on whether to pick up Torii Hunter's contract option for 2007 before the end of the week. Hunter's option isn't the only decision that needs to be made, and it might not even be the biggest, considering the impact of guaranteeing Carlos Silva $4.3 million and a rotation spot next year. But Hunter's is the most expensive contract option the Twins will have ever picked up, so it requires its share of consideration.

The debate has raged for most of the year. Two months ago, you were hard-pressed to find someone who thought the Twins would pick up the option. A week ago, you were hard-pressed to find someone who didn't. Ironically, that swing corresponded with a decrease in Torii's defense, the facet of the game for which Torii is best known. The .314 BA and 9 home runs he sported in September might have had something to do with that.

It's assumed now that the Twins will pick up Hunter's option, but the reasons given aren't always clear. Some say it's because he's earned it. Some say it's because not doing so would send the wrong message to the fans, or the team. And some think they Twins should because they only recently figured out the concept of "sunk cost" and had previously assumed it was a $12 million option ($2.5 M is guaranteed regardless).

The problem is that none of these are the question that really should be asked. That question is - would the team be better with Hunter in center field at $9.5 million, or with someone else in center field with a different amount of money. That's a harder question to ask, of course, becuase it requires some research. At GameDay, we're all about research (though not so much about html formatting, which is why you're going to need to scroll down a bit), so let's take a look at the other options, and you can decide for yourself what the answer is.

PLAYER	TEAM	AGE	AB	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
David Dellucci	Phi	32	264	13	39	1	0.292	0.369	0.530	0.899
Gary Matthews Jr.	Tex	32	620	19	79	10	0.313	0.371	0.495	0.866
Mike Cameron	SD	33	552	22	83	25	0.268	0.355	0.482	0.837
Torii Hunter	Min	31	557	31	98	12	0.278	0.336	0.490	0.826
Kenny Lofton	LA	39	469	3	41	32	0.301	0.360	0.403	0.763
Dave Roberts	SD	34	499	2	44	49	0.293	0.360	0.393	0.752
Jay Payton	Oak	33	557	10	59	8	0.296	0.325	0.418	0.743
Juan Pierre	ChC	29	699	3	40	58	0.292	0.330	0.388	0.717
Steve Finley	SF	41	426	6	40	7	0.246	0.320	0.394	0.714
Gabe Kapler	Bos	31	130	2	12	1	0.254	0.340	0.354	0.694

You'll notice that these are not young men. You'll also notice that above Torii, there aren't a lot of sure things.

David Dellucci is listed as a center fielder, but played a corner spot most of this year, and was traded away from the Rangers because he wasn't a true center fielder. He also has never hit left-handers, and really only played as a utility outfieder in Philly, though he had a very good 2005 in Texas. I suspect his defense isn't deemed solid enough for the Twins to be interested, but he would certainly cost less than Hunter - he made just $950,000 last year.

The most interesting free agent test will be that of Gary Matthews Jr. It's unusual for a breakthrough year to happen to a 31-year-old, but Matthews was the complete package, offenseivly and defensively. This will be his last, best chance at a payday, but he's also probably cheaper than Hunter. I wouldn't be shocked if he signs for $15M over 3 years. If he's legit, that's going to be a great buy for some team.

I'm including Mike Cameron on the list, but he likely won't be available, because the Padres have a $7M option ($0.5 M buyout). Cameron may be the most comparable player on this list for Hunter, and another playoff team is debating whether to pick up his option, which is $3M less. However, it sound like they are planning on picking up that option, so the market is more or less set.

You can take a look at the options below Hunter yourself. Several qualify as "speedsters", which would require some fancy stepping as the the Twins would need to move Castillo. The only one likely to cost more than $5M per year would be Juan Pierre.

There are more options here than I thought, and it shows that if the Twins decide not to pick up Hunter's option, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to turn to Lew Ford or Jason Tyner or Denard Span. But they would need to risk losing Hunter before the free agent season starts, and then they're at the mercy of the market. Ultimately, their risk aversion likely means they'll still pick up the option.