There were a couple links the last couple days that piqued my interest, that I wanted to share.
Link #1:The Platoon Advantage has spent the last few days taking on a hugely entertaining hypothetical expansion draft. When talking about realignment, expansion seems to me to be a much more sensible way than moving a team to a different league, having constant interleague play, and teams dealing with having to play with different rules in random parts of the schedule (it's bad enough they have to play with different rules in a concentrated part).
The idea of expansion drafts, and how different teams would approach them, has always fascinated me (my friend Tim and I actually created a couple expansion teams around 1993 - go San Jose Scorpions!). Plus, they seem to agree with my idea for putting a team in Brooklyn - something I feel strongly about, whether it is the Rays (or another moving franchise) or an expansion team. I would prefer to see Brooklyn get an expansion team and the Rays to get a shot in the actual city of Tampa, I just don't know if that's possible. I digress though.
There are a few quibbles I have (there's no way the Yankees would protect AJ Burnett, or the Diamondbacks would expose Paul Goldschmidt, for example), but overall they came to a very sensible conclusion. Most interestingly, by having a different person choose both teams, each seems to have a specific style/personality - Brooklyn going with a more veteran team, perhaps with the intention of trading players for value, with the Portland team going for a more traditional expansion-style set of choices for young players with upside. I enjoyed the whole exercise thoroughly.
Link #2: Jonah Lehrer has a column on the failings of Sabermetrics at the ESPN spinoff site Grantland. Sadly, instead of addressing some of the more legitimate concerns, he takes a dismissive tone and relies on anectdotal evidence that doesn't really make any sense. The example of the Dallas Mavericks is especially odd, since they are (along with Houston and, to an extent, Portland) the premier franchise that uses statistical analysis. Instead of pointing out how Rick Carlisle was able to use his knowledge of matchups and advanced metrics to his advantage and enable to him to defeat a more talented team, he basically ignored them entirely.
Fangraphs and Beyond the Boxscore had a better deconstructing of this than I could possibly do (Fangraphs has some especially interesting points in the comments section).
One point though. The anti-stat crowd always loves to point out that "statistics can't measure heart!" But really, when evaluating a player, wouldn't statistics do a better job of encouraging a team to draft a physically unimposing player who excels because he has an uncommon drive? My favorite example of this is Dustin Pedroia. In 1990, he would have been a 15th round draft pick, and spent a half-dozen years in the minors, no matter how well he hit, before eventually making it to the majors as a backup. Why? Because he's about 5'5" with an uppercut swing and a mediocre arm. So why did he make it so quickly in the statistical age? Because his results are so excellent, that's why. The Red Sox didn't care that he's short, and has funny swing mechanics and has a chip on his shoulder that might put some scouts off in an interview. They saw him produce at a very high level Arizona State and waited for him to fall into their laps with the 65th pick in the 2004 draft. They watched him tear his way through the minor leagues, straight through to the 2007 Rookie of the Year Award and 2008 MVP. That stats were picking up what some scouts would not - that Pedroia was significantly outplaying what his physical tools said he should. You can argue any reason you'd like for that, be it "heart" or "grit" or "hitting a baseball is a skill, not an exhibition of athleticism" or whatever you want. The fact is, statistical analysis by the Red Sox alerted them to his excellence, and they are now reaping the benefits.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
How good is BJ Upton? A Comparison.
Let's get this out of the way - I apologize that three out of my last four posts have been about the Rays, despite the fact that one of those posts was arguing that almost nobody cares about the Rays and that maybe they should move. So if you're annoyed and would prefer it if I wrote about your favorite team/player, feel free to send me a dollar.
Moving on, let's take a quick look at two center fielders who were born 10 days apart in 1984, debuted at age 19, and were once considered building blocks of the futures of their respective teams. Here are their performances since the beginning of the 2009 season (ages 24-26, statistics lifted from our friends at Baseball-Reference):
So let's take a look. The first thing that jumps out is that Player B steals a lot more bases. Stolen bases are becoming a more important part of the game in recent years, and the stolen base percentage is quite efficient, so that's a plus. Player B also exhibits a bit more power, hitting home runs once every 38.6 plate appearances, while Player A goes deep once every 54. Player B walks a little bit more often, but strikes out more than twice as frequently -once every 3.9 PA, while Player A strikes out only once every 8.4. Strikeouts on their own aren't inherently worse than other outs, but an extremely high strikeout rate like this will keep the batting average down, particularly if it isn't being supplemented with plus power. That's what appears to be happening here, Player B strikes out so much that it drives his batting average down to the point where his OBP and SLG are lower than a guy who walks and homers less often.
The fact that Player B has a slightly higher OPS+ than Player A despite a lower actual OPS shows that he's probably been playing in a slightly harder hitting environment, but neither guy is even an average hitter.
So, can you guess who the two players are? Yes, of course BJ Upton is one, his name is in the title. I'll give you a moment to try to figure out who the other one is. Take your time. Remember, he's a starting center fielder in the major leagues right now.
Figure it out yet?
It's Melky Cabrera. Seriously. BJ Upton is Melky Cabrera with more stolen bases.
Melky Cabrera, if you recall, was such an integral part of the Yankees 2009 World Series that he was a throw in as part of a trade that brought them Javier Vazquez after that season. He was then so bad for the Braves that he was released, and signed as a free agent by Royals GM Dayton Moore, a move that was roundly mocked. Meanwhile, BJ Upton is consistently brought up as a possible valuable trading commodity for the Rays, with the hot rumors having him going to the Nationals. One has to wonder why the Nationals, or any team, would consider giving up prospects to pick up a guy who, over a significant amount of at bats, doesn't hit any better than a guy who was released and picked up by a rebuilding team as space-filler until the real prospects are ready.
Now, Upton IS a better player than Cabrera. Cabrera's power numbers were "inflated" by hitting 9 of his 13 homers in 2009 in the new Yankee Stadium, which is why Upton still has the higher OPS+. Meanwhile, Upton's defense has generally been very good over the same time period, while Cabrera's has not. All things being equal, I would rather have BJ Upton on my team than Melky Cabrera. All things aren't equal though. Upton is probably going to cost some team a lot in terms of prospects, and someone will probably give him a long-term contract in free agency. Meanwhile, Melky Cabrera was released and makes a third of the major league average salary. The stolen bases and superior defense don't do enough to justify the gap in perception between the two.
Part of it is visual - Upton is lanky and athletic, looking every bit the part of a star prospect, and he still has that baby face. Meanwhile, Melky looks dumpy, and his conditioning was a big reason he fell out of favor in both New York and Atlanta. Another is our initial recognition. Upton was a top prospect and had an excellent year in 2007, when he was 22 for most of the season. He then was one of the dominant players of the 2008 postseason, hitting seven home runs in the first two rounds. Cabrera was considered a potential starter but never really a future star, and 2006, his best season, was only impressive in the context of his young age. In reality, they've been remarkably similar hitters since 2009, neither impressive.
Sidenote - I hesitate to use the term "overrated," because it speaks more to our perceptions of players than the players themselves. It's far more instructive to try and simply consider players based on their performance. Getting into a discussion about overrated/underrated can only lead to the inevitable "who is doing the rating" dead end question. There are always players we see in "most overrated" polls, but when everyone agrees they are overrated, they aren't overrated anymore. Calling BJ Upton overrated is meaningless.
Maybe Upton simply needs a change of scenery. As I discussed the other day, Tampa can be a pretty "blah" place to play, and maybe he's just not properly motivated playing there. I just wouldn't be willing to part with a top prospect in order to find out.
Moving on, let's take a quick look at two center fielders who were born 10 days apart in 1984, debuted at age 19, and were once considered building blocks of the futures of their respective teams. Here are their performances since the beginning of the 2009 season (ages 24-26, statistics lifted from our friends at Baseball-Reference):
| G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | OPS+ | TB | GDP | HBP | SH | SF | IBB | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player A | 377 | 1404 | 1273 | 160 | 342 | 72 | 7 | 26 | 153 | 27 | 5 | 105 | 170 | 0.269 | 0.325 | 0.397 | 0.722 | 93 | 506 | 28 | 5 | 12 | 9 | 16 |
| Player B | 373 | 1545 | 1368 | 208 | 323 | 83 | 8 | 40 | 158 | 104 | 27 | 158 | 394 | 0.236 | 0.316 | 0.396 | 0.712 | 95 | 542 | 26 | 6 | 4 | 9 | 3 |
So let's take a look. The first thing that jumps out is that Player B steals a lot more bases. Stolen bases are becoming a more important part of the game in recent years, and the stolen base percentage is quite efficient, so that's a plus. Player B also exhibits a bit more power, hitting home runs once every 38.6 plate appearances, while Player A goes deep once every 54. Player B walks a little bit more often, but strikes out more than twice as frequently -once every 3.9 PA, while Player A strikes out only once every 8.4. Strikeouts on their own aren't inherently worse than other outs, but an extremely high strikeout rate like this will keep the batting average down, particularly if it isn't being supplemented with plus power. That's what appears to be happening here, Player B strikes out so much that it drives his batting average down to the point where his OBP and SLG are lower than a guy who walks and homers less often.
The fact that Player B has a slightly higher OPS+ than Player A despite a lower actual OPS shows that he's probably been playing in a slightly harder hitting environment, but neither guy is even an average hitter.
So, can you guess who the two players are? Yes, of course BJ Upton is one, his name is in the title. I'll give you a moment to try to figure out who the other one is. Take your time. Remember, he's a starting center fielder in the major leagues right now.
Figure it out yet?
It's Melky Cabrera. Seriously. BJ Upton is Melky Cabrera with more stolen bases.
Melky Cabrera, if you recall, was such an integral part of the Yankees 2009 World Series that he was a throw in as part of a trade that brought them Javier Vazquez after that season. He was then so bad for the Braves that he was released, and signed as a free agent by Royals GM Dayton Moore, a move that was roundly mocked. Meanwhile, BJ Upton is consistently brought up as a possible valuable trading commodity for the Rays, with the hot rumors having him going to the Nationals. One has to wonder why the Nationals, or any team, would consider giving up prospects to pick up a guy who, over a significant amount of at bats, doesn't hit any better than a guy who was released and picked up by a rebuilding team as space-filler until the real prospects are ready.
Now, Upton IS a better player than Cabrera. Cabrera's power numbers were "inflated" by hitting 9 of his 13 homers in 2009 in the new Yankee Stadium, which is why Upton still has the higher OPS+. Meanwhile, Upton's defense has generally been very good over the same time period, while Cabrera's has not. All things being equal, I would rather have BJ Upton on my team than Melky Cabrera. All things aren't equal though. Upton is probably going to cost some team a lot in terms of prospects, and someone will probably give him a long-term contract in free agency. Meanwhile, Melky Cabrera was released and makes a third of the major league average salary. The stolen bases and superior defense don't do enough to justify the gap in perception between the two.
Part of it is visual - Upton is lanky and athletic, looking every bit the part of a star prospect, and he still has that baby face. Meanwhile, Melky looks dumpy, and his conditioning was a big reason he fell out of favor in both New York and Atlanta. Another is our initial recognition. Upton was a top prospect and had an excellent year in 2007, when he was 22 for most of the season. He then was one of the dominant players of the 2008 postseason, hitting seven home runs in the first two rounds. Cabrera was considered a potential starter but never really a future star, and 2006, his best season, was only impressive in the context of his young age. In reality, they've been remarkably similar hitters since 2009, neither impressive.
Sidenote - I hesitate to use the term "overrated," because it speaks more to our perceptions of players than the players themselves. It's far more instructive to try and simply consider players based on their performance. Getting into a discussion about overrated/underrated can only lead to the inevitable "who is doing the rating" dead end question. There are always players we see in "most overrated" polls, but when everyone agrees they are overrated, they aren't overrated anymore. Calling BJ Upton overrated is meaningless.
Maybe Upton simply needs a change of scenery. As I discussed the other day, Tampa can be a pretty "blah" place to play, and maybe he's just not properly motivated playing there. I just wouldn't be willing to part with a top prospect in order to find out.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Moving Jose Bautista to 3B Makes Sense
Let us start with the obvious. Jose Bautista is the best hitter on the Blue Jays. Is he really the best hitter in the American League, as he has been so far this year? That's open for debate - it was only a couple years ago that Bautista wasn't yet good, and Miguel Cabrera still exists. However, in 2011, Bautista leads the AL in walks and home runs, enabling an amazing .325/.468/.655 stat line. In exactly 999 plate appearances since the beginning of last year, his stat line of .280/.406/.628 places him among the elite players in the game. Over the same time frame, Josh Hamilton has a similar .343/.397/.604 stat line, in 250 fewer plate appearances.
While Bautista has spent the year coldly annihilating American League pitching, Toronto 3B have been completely anemic:
| PA | HR | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jayson Nix | 137 | 4 | 0.179 | 0.255 | 0.333 | 0.589 |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 87 | 1 | 0.207 | 0.241 | 0.341 | 0.583 |
| John McDonald | 56 | 1 | 0.180 | 0.226 | 0.280 | 0.506 |
| Mike McCoy | 23 | 0 | 0.150 | 0.261 | 0.150 | 0.411 |
| Chris Woodward | 4 | 0 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Team Total | 307 | 6 | 0.183 | 0.243 | 0.308 | 0.552 |
None of the people who played 3B this year for Toronto have an OPS even as high as Bautista's slugging percentage. If it weren't for the Seattle Mariners, the Blue Jays would have the least production at the position in the league.
So let's answer some questions you might have:
Will moving Bautista hurt his offensive production?
That's hard to imagine - great hitters don't stop being great just because they play a different defensive position. Also, he's not moving to a more physically demanding position, like shortstop or catcher, just a harder one. Looking at his 2009 stats, he did hit for less power while playing 3B, so it is worth keeping an eye on. My worry, though, is that he's playing over his head. If Bautista hits something like .290/.415/.575 in the second half, it may be interpreted as a decline in production and met with calls to move him to his more "comfortable" position, rather being accepted as a more accurate representation of his actual skills.
Also, remember that 3B in general has fewer great hitters than right field - so even if his offense does regress a tad at the position, the difference between Bautista and the average-hitting 3B will be greater than between him and the average-hitting RF.
Isn't Bautista a pretty terrible defensive 3B?
It seems that way, yes - he was never good in Pittsburgh, and it's doubtful he's gotten better. Two things about that though. First, Bautista is a bad defensive right fielder. Second, while Nix and McDonald are acceptable (ok - McDonald is pretty good), Encarnacion is probably even worse than Bautista is. So let's get him out of the picture entirely. The question is really whether Bautista is so much worse defensively than Nix and McDonald that it would cancel out the amazing increase in production. Let's pretend that Nix and McDonald are at replacement level when we combine their offense and defense. Bautista's offense has been over 11 wins more than a replacement level right fielder since the start of 2010, a higher standard than a replacement level third baseman. Since that's about a year and a half, call it 7.5 per year. In the last four years, zero 3B have been more than 2 wins below replacement for the course of the season. Chipper Jones, a pretty notorious 3B, was -1.3 dWAR in his worst season. That means Bautista would have to be almost four times as bad at 3B than the next worst - even if that were possible, if he were anything close to that, they'd pull the plug on the experiment long before we got to that point. So even if he's the worst defensive 3B in baseball, his total production makes him a huge upgrade anyway.
Isn't moving Bautista just moving the problem around rather than fixing it?
The average 3B in the AL hits only .239/.310/.378 while the average RF hits .264/.340/.425. The reason for this is that there are more people out there who can play RF acceptably than can play 3B. The Jays think they have RF who are at least capable of outproducing they guys they've used at 3B, which means rather than moving the problem, they'd be creating an opportunity.
At first glance, it looks like they have more than enough talent on hand to meet that unambitious goal. The candidates:
-Juan Rivera is hitting .253/.317/.378 this year - slightly below his career numbers, particularly in the power department, but not far from what would be expected of a 32 year old given Rivera's production at his peak.
-Travis Snider, a constant source of frustration among Jay fans, hit a paltry .184/.276/.264 to start the year, earning him a trip to AAA Las Vegas. However, he is still only 23, and has a career .246/.313/.423 line in the majors, as well as .324/.396/.468 since returning to the minors. Even considering how good a place Vegas is to hit (no double meaning intended), it's hard to imagine that's a complete fluke. Snider would be a significant upgrade over Nix/McDonald/Encarnacion offensively.
-Adam Loewen - yes, the former pitching prospect for the Orioles what seems like forever ago. Loewen has hit .314/.376/.564 in AAA in his attempt to become the new Rick Ankiel. 43 extra base hits in 312 plate appearances can't be ignored, but the 78 strikeouts give pause.
-Eric Thames (no relation to Marcus) is hitting .352/.423/.610 in his first attempt at AAA, after an impressive .288/.370/.526 in the more pitcher-friendly New Hampshire ballpark last year. He's a little old for a prospect at 24, but the production seems real. In 52 PA, mostly coming while Adam Lind was on the DL, he went .298/.365/.426, and he was recalled again on Friday.
-David Cooper, Toronto's first round pick in the 2008 draft, had generally disappointed in the minors up until this year when he arrived in Las Vegas, where he has a line of .371/.435/.576. Accentuating his line is his league-leading 29 doubles. Cooper spent a couple weeks with the major league club earlier this year, hitting .121/.244/.242. The fact that this is the first year Cooper has really hit, and the fact that he didn't produce in a short big league trial, may be two strikes against him. However, Cooper's status as a #1 pick and his impressive 28/20 walk to strikeout ratio may push him to the front.
I wouldn't go out and proclaim any of these players a budding superstar, but I feel confident that each of them could produce above a .600 OPS with acceptable defense, with an upside quite a bit higher than that. With the Blue Jays fading out of the race in the American League, it seems sensible to see both whether Bautista can handle being an everyday 3B while remaining productive and, if so, who among the cast of potential right fielders will move himself to the top of the list.
Photo credit: Keith Allison http://www.flickr.com/photos/27003603@N00/5801269943
Table made with TABLEIZER
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Should the Rays move out of Tampa Bay?
Hah, trick question. They don't even play in Tampa Bay!
That's part of the problem, folks.
Today on ESPN there is a well-done (but misleadingly headlined) article by Steve Berthiaume regarding the Rays' tenuous status in St. Petersburg. The crux of the article is that even with the Rays having been one of baseball's better teams the last three years, their attendance and television figures are declining. Berthiaume cites a bevy of statistics regarding the Rays and the area's other two major sport franchises, the Buccaneers and Lightning. I feel like there are a few thoughts regarding the Rays and MLB in general that I wanted to add for consideration.
One major issue is the location of the stadium and its quality. Tropicana Field is universally regarded as the worst stadium in baseball. What's worse is that it is apparently in a somewhat less-than-top-notch place on the outskirts of town. This isn't a place like Wrigley, Fenway or PacBell, with a downtown park where people will walk up and buy a ticket on a Friday evening after work with their friends. People need to make specific plans to go out there. For my Boston friends, imagine if a second "Boston" team was added, so you had no real reason to care about them. Now imagine if instead of having a Boston park, they actually played in Framingham. Would you go out after work and check them out? You would have to wait in Mass Pike traffic just to get to Route 9 just in time for light cycle bottlenecks. Wouldn't that be a huge pain in the backside?
So, in my humble opinion it is unfair to judge based on their league-worst attendance numbers. What's worse is that the economy in the Tampa area is pretty poor, and has been for the entire time the Rays have been any good. So I hate to make a rash pronouncement like "baseball can't survive in Tampa" since there is no baseball in Tampa. In early 2007, when people seemed to assume that the housing market would continue to increase exponentially towards infinity, the (the Devil) Rays announced an ambitious waterfront stadium project. When the economy was collapsing a year later, the financing dried up. So the Rays are stuck at the Trop. Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg mayor Bill Foster is unwilling to let the Rays explore building a part in Tampa "The Rays aren’t going to Tampa or Hillsborough County" is a direct quote from Foster to the St. Petersburg times. Apparently losing the Rays to another part of the country is more palatable to Foster than losing them across the bay.
I don't want to judge how good a market the Tampa area can be based on their attendance numbers. As Berthiaume points out, the Lightning and Bucs had poor attendance numbers last year, which (especially for the Bucs) is not necessarily a terminal issue. Given a downtown ballpark and a better economy, there's a chance the franchise would do pretty well. Damning Tampa while their economy stinks reminds me of the mid-late '90's when the NHL left Winnepeg and Quebec City, and passed over Hamilton for an expansion club because the Canadian dollar stunk. It was a short-term solution for an industry that needs long-term vision for success. 10 years later things evened out and we were left with hot weather cities that didn't care having teams while rabid fanbases who would turn out to their arenas without one.
To me, the bigger issue is the drop in TV revenue. Maybe people in the Tampa area like baseball, but just not heading all the way out to the Trop to spend money to watch them in a crummy stadium. That seems totally rational to me. If that were the case though, wouldn't TV ratings be staying strong? Wouldn't people want to turn in and watch David Price (the most outwardly critical of the Rays players regarding the crummy situation) and Evan Longoria? Well, they're not. In fact, less people are watching than before. It's possible that people don't care.
Anyway, in year 14, I think it's fair to say that MLB pretty well screwed this up. They awarded the Tampa area a franchise without a downtown stadium, and allowed them to get locked into a crippling 30 year lease. That mistake is done though, the question now is how to move a well-run franchise forward.
So, should the Rays move? Yes. If it's not to Tampa Bay, then it should be somewhere else. The problem is what market would support them? Are Indianapolis or Charlotte or Portland any more ready to host a major league franchise than St. Petersburg was in 1998? MLB needs to do their due diligence and make sure a sensible stadium plan is ready in order to sustain a franchise.
MLB needs to let the Rays move where they feel they will be most financially strong long-term. This brings us to the second problem, that being how MLB handles its financials - the old small market vs. big market divide. I should note, I hate the term "market." Houston is a "bigger market" than Boston, but the Red Sox have a better revenue stream. Park of that is built in, part is due to things the organization does well, ranging from marketing to actually winning games.
Teams that do well financially are understandably hesitant to share their revenues. It's important to remember though, that while MLB teams compete against each other on the field, they are financial complements, especially long term. If, say, the Rockies do better at the gate, television ratings and merchandising goes up significantly national contracts are worth more, and the Red Sox earn more money. Meanwhile, if the Red Sox are in town, the Rockies reap those benefits. Unlike Microsoft, the Yankees have no sensible motivation for financially bludgeoning the competition. That said, unlike other industries each individual team exists not only to succeed financially, but to win baseball games.
How to solve this dilemma? Baseball needs to stop pretending it is some sort of free-market cartel. Solution 1: If baseball considers it in their best interests to operate teams in lesser markets, it needs to implement more significant revenue sharing. Not just a payroll tax, but actually sharing of local TV/radio revenue, stadium receipts and merchandising. If YES and NESN and other major team-owned sports media conglomerates continue to underreport the value of their contracts, MLB should be allowed to negotiate the contracts for each team. If you think there's any chance that the Yankees and Red Sox accept these terms, I should also tell you that the word "gullible" is written on the ceiling above you. The simple fact is that real revenue sharing just isn't possible the way it is in football. And that's ok. The Yankees and Red Sox and Phillies, for all of the complaints about them (some real, others imagined) make so much money because they are well run business. Criticize the Yankees for their inability to develop their own players if you wish, but that's a *baseball* complaint, not a business one. The Yankees turn a huge advantage into huge revenues.
Solution 2: If large market teams are unwilling to share their revenues, they should have no right to market exclusivity. The situation with San Francisco right now is ridiculous. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Oakland Athletics would like to move to San Jose, a larger market in better financial condition. However, San Jose is considered within the San Francisco Giants' market sphere, and they won't allow the move. Even though Oakland is closer to San Francisco than San Jose is. So we have a situation where large market teams not only don't have to share any meaningful part of their revenue, they can make it so other teams can't earn their own revenue. That's less ok. Large market teams are having it both ways, to the detriment of baseball in general.
Which brings us back the Rays. I'm not convinced that, even with revenue sharing, Tampa is a great market for baseball. You know what IS a great market for baseball though? Some hints. It has 2.6 million people over less than 100 square miles. It had a beloved MLB franchise at one time, and many locas still haven't forgiven them for leaving. It will be getting an NBA franchise in 2012. It has a multicultural base that MLB management craves. To say that the local population "proud" of where they live would be a tremendous understatement. Indeed, it's almost impossible to imagine a fanbase not buying about a million hats the moment a franchise was announced. What's even better is that they'd have an obvious geographic rivalry with two teams right in their own division. What more could MLB ask for?
Well, they'd have to ask for the Yankees and Mets to withdraw their territorial rights. I'm talking of course, about Brooklyn - a place the MLB should never have left. A Brooklyn vs. Bronx series would be a marketing dream for baseball. Maybe it's my northeast bias talking, but I don't see how that wouldn't fantastic. (Ok, if I were a Royals fan, Yankees vs. Brooklyn on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball five times a year would get a little tiring, but a rant on how baseball shoots itself in the foot by failing to promote itself nationally deserves an article all its own.) Also, they'd probably need to change their name - Brooklyn Rays sounds like an awesome place to get a greasy thin crust pizza, but a less cool team baseball team name.
As I said above, I'm not ready to hold a funeral for Tampa Bay baseball. There are loyal fans of the Rays who deserve better treatment than they've gotten. I'd hate to make Dick Vitale said. If they do decide to move though, I can think of no better destination than Brooklyn. And the Yankees and Mets shouldn't be allowed to stop them.
That's part of the problem, folks.
Today on ESPN there is a well-done (but misleadingly headlined) article by Steve Berthiaume regarding the Rays' tenuous status in St. Petersburg. The crux of the article is that even with the Rays having been one of baseball's better teams the last three years, their attendance and television figures are declining. Berthiaume cites a bevy of statistics regarding the Rays and the area's other two major sport franchises, the Buccaneers and Lightning. I feel like there are a few thoughts regarding the Rays and MLB in general that I wanted to add for consideration.
One major issue is the location of the stadium and its quality. Tropicana Field is universally regarded as the worst stadium in baseball. What's worse is that it is apparently in a somewhat less-than-top-notch place on the outskirts of town. This isn't a place like Wrigley, Fenway or PacBell, with a downtown park where people will walk up and buy a ticket on a Friday evening after work with their friends. People need to make specific plans to go out there. For my Boston friends, imagine if a second "Boston" team was added, so you had no real reason to care about them. Now imagine if instead of having a Boston park, they actually played in Framingham. Would you go out after work and check them out? You would have to wait in Mass Pike traffic just to get to Route 9 just in time for light cycle bottlenecks. Wouldn't that be a huge pain in the backside?
So, in my humble opinion it is unfair to judge based on their league-worst attendance numbers. What's worse is that the economy in the Tampa area is pretty poor, and has been for the entire time the Rays have been any good. So I hate to make a rash pronouncement like "baseball can't survive in Tampa" since there is no baseball in Tampa. In early 2007, when people seemed to assume that the housing market would continue to increase exponentially towards infinity, the (the Devil) Rays announced an ambitious waterfront stadium project. When the economy was collapsing a year later, the financing dried up. So the Rays are stuck at the Trop. Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg mayor Bill Foster is unwilling to let the Rays explore building a part in Tampa "The Rays aren’t going to Tampa or Hillsborough County" is a direct quote from Foster to the St. Petersburg times. Apparently losing the Rays to another part of the country is more palatable to Foster than losing them across the bay.
I don't want to judge how good a market the Tampa area can be based on their attendance numbers. As Berthiaume points out, the Lightning and Bucs had poor attendance numbers last year, which (especially for the Bucs) is not necessarily a terminal issue. Given a downtown ballpark and a better economy, there's a chance the franchise would do pretty well. Damning Tampa while their economy stinks reminds me of the mid-late '90's when the NHL left Winnepeg and Quebec City, and passed over Hamilton for an expansion club because the Canadian dollar stunk. It was a short-term solution for an industry that needs long-term vision for success. 10 years later things evened out and we were left with hot weather cities that didn't care having teams while rabid fanbases who would turn out to their arenas without one.
To me, the bigger issue is the drop in TV revenue. Maybe people in the Tampa area like baseball, but just not heading all the way out to the Trop to spend money to watch them in a crummy stadium. That seems totally rational to me. If that were the case though, wouldn't TV ratings be staying strong? Wouldn't people want to turn in and watch David Price (the most outwardly critical of the Rays players regarding the crummy situation) and Evan Longoria? Well, they're not. In fact, less people are watching than before. It's possible that people don't care.
Anyway, in year 14, I think it's fair to say that MLB pretty well screwed this up. They awarded the Tampa area a franchise without a downtown stadium, and allowed them to get locked into a crippling 30 year lease. That mistake is done though, the question now is how to move a well-run franchise forward.
So, should the Rays move? Yes. If it's not to Tampa Bay, then it should be somewhere else. The problem is what market would support them? Are Indianapolis or Charlotte or Portland any more ready to host a major league franchise than St. Petersburg was in 1998? MLB needs to do their due diligence and make sure a sensible stadium plan is ready in order to sustain a franchise.
MLB needs to let the Rays move where they feel they will be most financially strong long-term. This brings us to the second problem, that being how MLB handles its financials - the old small market vs. big market divide. I should note, I hate the term "market." Houston is a "bigger market" than Boston, but the Red Sox have a better revenue stream. Park of that is built in, part is due to things the organization does well, ranging from marketing to actually winning games.
Teams that do well financially are understandably hesitant to share their revenues. It's important to remember though, that while MLB teams compete against each other on the field, they are financial complements, especially long term. If, say, the Rockies do better at the gate, television ratings and merchandising goes up significantly national contracts are worth more, and the Red Sox earn more money. Meanwhile, if the Red Sox are in town, the Rockies reap those benefits. Unlike Microsoft, the Yankees have no sensible motivation for financially bludgeoning the competition. That said, unlike other industries each individual team exists not only to succeed financially, but to win baseball games.
How to solve this dilemma? Baseball needs to stop pretending it is some sort of free-market cartel. Solution 1: If baseball considers it in their best interests to operate teams in lesser markets, it needs to implement more significant revenue sharing. Not just a payroll tax, but actually sharing of local TV/radio revenue, stadium receipts and merchandising. If YES and NESN and other major team-owned sports media conglomerates continue to underreport the value of their contracts, MLB should be allowed to negotiate the contracts for each team. If you think there's any chance that the Yankees and Red Sox accept these terms, I should also tell you that the word "gullible" is written on the ceiling above you. The simple fact is that real revenue sharing just isn't possible the way it is in football. And that's ok. The Yankees and Red Sox and Phillies, for all of the complaints about them (some real, others imagined) make so much money because they are well run business. Criticize the Yankees for their inability to develop their own players if you wish, but that's a *baseball* complaint, not a business one. The Yankees turn a huge advantage into huge revenues.
Solution 2: If large market teams are unwilling to share their revenues, they should have no right to market exclusivity. The situation with San Francisco right now is ridiculous. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Oakland Athletics would like to move to San Jose, a larger market in better financial condition. However, San Jose is considered within the San Francisco Giants' market sphere, and they won't allow the move. Even though Oakland is closer to San Francisco than San Jose is. So we have a situation where large market teams not only don't have to share any meaningful part of their revenue, they can make it so other teams can't earn their own revenue. That's less ok. Large market teams are having it both ways, to the detriment of baseball in general.
Which brings us back the Rays. I'm not convinced that, even with revenue sharing, Tampa is a great market for baseball. You know what IS a great market for baseball though? Some hints. It has 2.6 million people over less than 100 square miles. It had a beloved MLB franchise at one time, and many locas still haven't forgiven them for leaving. It will be getting an NBA franchise in 2012. It has a multicultural base that MLB management craves. To say that the local population "proud" of where they live would be a tremendous understatement. Indeed, it's almost impossible to imagine a fanbase not buying about a million hats the moment a franchise was announced. What's even better is that they'd have an obvious geographic rivalry with two teams right in their own division. What more could MLB ask for?
Well, they'd have to ask for the Yankees and Mets to withdraw their territorial rights. I'm talking of course, about Brooklyn - a place the MLB should never have left. A Brooklyn vs. Bronx series would be a marketing dream for baseball. Maybe it's my northeast bias talking, but I don't see how that wouldn't fantastic. (Ok, if I were a Royals fan, Yankees vs. Brooklyn on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball five times a year would get a little tiring, but a rant on how baseball shoots itself in the foot by failing to promote itself nationally deserves an article all its own.) Also, they'd probably need to change their name - Brooklyn Rays sounds like an awesome place to get a greasy thin crust pizza, but a less cool team baseball team name.
As I said above, I'm not ready to hold a funeral for Tampa Bay baseball. There are loyal fans of the Rays who deserve better treatment than they've gotten. I'd hate to make Dick Vitale said. If they do decide to move though, I can think of no better destination than Brooklyn. And the Yankees and Mets shouldn't be allowed to stop them.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Johnny Damon, Milestones, and the Hall of Fame
As you may have heard, last week Johnny Damon collected his 500th double. In doing so, he became just the 11th player all-time to compile 500 doubles, 100 triples, 200 homers, and 2,500 hits, joining George Brett, Lou Gehrig, Goose Goslin, Rogers Hornsby, Willie Mays, Paul Molitor, Stan Musial, Babe Ruth, Al Simmons and Robin Yount. Those other 10 players are in the Hall of Fame, so there have been quite a few articles about how joining this group enhances Damon's Hall of Fame candidacy. What it really means is that Damon is the worst player all time with 500 doubles, 100 triples, 200 homers, and 2,500 hits. By a pretty good margin.
That shouldn't be taken as an insult, of course. None of the players on that list are of the "borderline" Hall of Fame variety. All of them were fantastic, all are among the greatest of all time. What makes this statistic sort of fluky is the fact that, on their own, none of these milestones are especially impressive. Ok, maybe that's not fair - all of them are extremely impressive in the grand scheme of baseball history. None of them, though, put you into the top 50 of all time in their category.
Furthermore, I feel very comfortable calling Damon the "worst" of these players, since he ranks 11 out of 11 in all four categories.
So, I suppose the analysis is that, while previously, only elite players had passed the determined threshold in all of the categories, Damon is the first player of his type to do so - a good player with a well rounded offensive game that was able to contribute in a variety of ways but was historically dominant in none.
To further illustrate the point, I've ranked each 11 player by what percentage they surpassed each mil
This is, of course, a very crude way of calculating greatness. First of all it favors the home run hitters - four players on here more than doubled the 200 HR milestone, while nobody comes close to doubling Damon's total in another category. In general, taking a random milestone and finding out how much a player surpassed it by is going to favor the players who surpassed said milestone by a very significant margin. My counterargument to that is it's fairly crude analysis to consider Damon among these greats because he passed the same milestones. Damon is only more than 6% beyond one of these milestones. Every other players is at least 30% above in one of the categories with the exception of Robin Yount - who is 15% above in all four, and more than 25% higher in three of the four.
Yount, it seems, is the closest thing to a comparable player to Damon, in that he also didn't dominate any one way. He did, however, remain very productive well into his 30's, surpassing all of them significantly, getting to 3142 hits, 251 HR, 583 2B and 126 3B. So I think it's fair to consider Damon a poor man's Robin Yount, which is pretty darn good.
If Damon gets to 3000 hits, my guess is that he'll get to the Hall of Fame. He's never been one of the dominant players in the game, but he has been a very good player for a long time, and, at 350 hits away from 3000 with zero defensive value left, he's going to have to continue to be a useful hitter through 2013 to have a shot. While there are better players not in the Hall - Tim Raines specifically comes to mind - Damon would be far from the worst player to gain enshrinement.
As it is, even if he finishes short of 3000 hits and the Hall, being remembered as a lesser-value Robin Yount who played a crucial role on two World Series champions is a legacy I think most players would be happy with.
Credit: Table made using TABLEIZER as always.
That shouldn't be taken as an insult, of course. None of the players on that list are of the "borderline" Hall of Fame variety. All of them were fantastic, all are among the greatest of all time. What makes this statistic sort of fluky is the fact that, on their own, none of these milestones are especially impressive. Ok, maybe that's not fair - all of them are extremely impressive in the grand scheme of baseball history. None of them, though, put you into the top 50 of all time in their category.
Furthermore, I feel very comfortable calling Damon the "worst" of these players, since he ranks 11 out of 11 in all four categories.
| H | HR | 2B | 3B | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damon | 2646 | 223 | 500 | 102 |
| Brett | 3154 | 317 | 665 | 137 |
| Gehrig | 2721 | 493 | 534 | 163 |
| Goslin | 2735 | 248 | 500 | 173 |
| Hornsby | 2930 | 301 | 541 | 169 |
| Mays | 3283 | 660 | 523 | 140 |
| Molitor | 3319 | 234 | 605 | 114 |
| Musial | 3630 | 475 | 725 | 177 |
| Ruth | 2873 | 714 | 506 | 136 |
| Simmons | 2927 | 307 | 539 | 149 |
| Yount | 3142 | 251 | 583 | 126 |
So, I suppose the analysis is that, while previously, only elite players had passed the determined threshold in all of the categories, Damon is the first player of his type to do so - a good player with a well rounded offensive game that was able to contribute in a variety of ways but was historically dominant in none.
To further illustrate the point, I've ranked each 11 player by what percentage they surpassed each mil
| H% over | HR% over | 2B% over | 3B% over | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruth | 14.92% | 257.00% | 1.20% | 36.00% | 309.12% |
| Mays | 31.32% | 230.00% | 4.60% | 40.00% | 305.92% |
| Musial | 45.20% | 137.50% | 45.00% | 77.00% | 304.70% |
| Gehrig | 8.84% | 146.50% | 6.80% | 63.00% | 225.14% |
| Brett | 26.16% | 58.50% | 33.00% | 37.00% | 154.66% |
| Hornsby | 17.20% | 50.50% | 8.20% | 69.00% | 144.90% |
| Simmons | 17.08% | 53.50% | 7.80% | 49.00% | 127.38% |
| Goslin | 9.40% | 24.00% | 0.00% | 73.00% | 106.40% |
| Yount | 25.68% | 25.50% | 16.60% | 26.00% | 93.78% |
| Molitor | 32.76% | 17.00% | 21.00% | 14.00% | 84.76% |
| Damon | 5.84% | 11.50% | 0.00% | 2.00% | 19.34% |
This is, of course, a very crude way of calculating greatness. First of all it favors the home run hitters - four players on here more than doubled the 200 HR milestone, while nobody comes close to doubling Damon's total in another category. In general, taking a random milestone and finding out how much a player surpassed it by is going to favor the players who surpassed said milestone by a very significant margin. My counterargument to that is it's fairly crude analysis to consider Damon among these greats because he passed the same milestones. Damon is only more than 6% beyond one of these milestones. Every other players is at least 30% above in one of the categories with the exception of Robin Yount - who is 15% above in all four, and more than 25% higher in three of the four.
Yount, it seems, is the closest thing to a comparable player to Damon, in that he also didn't dominate any one way. He did, however, remain very productive well into his 30's, surpassing all of them significantly, getting to 3142 hits, 251 HR, 583 2B and 126 3B. So I think it's fair to consider Damon a poor man's Robin Yount, which is pretty darn good.
If Damon gets to 3000 hits, my guess is that he'll get to the Hall of Fame. He's never been one of the dominant players in the game, but he has been a very good player for a long time, and, at 350 hits away from 3000 with zero defensive value left, he's going to have to continue to be a useful hitter through 2013 to have a shot. While there are better players not in the Hall - Tim Raines specifically comes to mind - Damon would be far from the worst player to gain enshrinement.
As it is, even if he finishes short of 3000 hits and the Hall, being remembered as a lesser-value Robin Yount who played a crucial role on two World Series champions is a legacy I think most players would be happy with.
Credit: Table made using TABLEIZER as always.
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