Monday, July 27, 2009
Sports Nation
Love ESPN's new show Sports Nation. Very interactive and technology based not to mention Colin Cowherd's radio show is my favorite on ESPN Radio. I'm glad to get more of him.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Dollars Equal Wins
Why do we even bother with baseball? Did you read my predictions back in April. Not to say “I told you so”, but I told you so! The top two positions in each of the six divisions is almost exactly the way I said it would be. Predicting Major League Baseball regular season standings is as easy as predicting the Brewer pitching is going to hit the wall in June and July.
For those of you who don’t know (and you probably do because baseball fans get really annoyed with me), I base my standings predictions in April on how much team payrolls are. The higher the payroll, the higher in the standings you finish. And wouldn’t you know it. The standings are pretty much in order of how much teams spend.
And yet there are still fans who say team payroll has nothing to do with it. Are you serious? Do you honestly think that?
If so, I guess there is nothing else I can do but review the standings with you:
AL East-1st place Yankees, 2nd place Red Sox. Highest payroll Yankees, 2nd highest payroll Red Sox
AL Central-1st place Tigers, 2nd place White Sox. Highest payroll Tigers, 2nd highest payroll White Sox
AL West-1st place Angels, 2nd place Rangers, Highest payroll Angels, 2nd highest payroll Rangers.
Are you seeing a theme here?
NL East-1st place Phillies, 2nd place Braves. Highest payroll Mets, 2nd highest payroll Braves. 3rd highest payroll Phillies. The Mets have had serious injury issues this year. Enough said.
NL Central-1st place Cardinals, 2nd place Cubs. Highest payroll Cubs. 2nd highest payroll Cardinals.
NL West-1st place Dodgers, 2nd place Giants. Highest payroll Dodgers. 2nd highest payroll Giants.
Money buys you victories. Plain and simple. Are there other components? Of course there are. You need smart people running your organization. That is why the Twins do so well year after year and why the A’s used to do well. But the window of opportunity is small. They need everything to go right like the Rays last year. They are not going to be perennial World Series contenders. In fact, how many championships have those three teams won this decade? Zero. There you go.
And yes, you need to draft smart. The Yankee fans always say that they drafted Jeter and Pasada. And if other teams drafted this well, they would be just as good. I guarantee you that if Jeter and Pasada had been drafted by the Brewers and Pirates, they would still be in New York. There is no way those organizations could have kept those guys financially when they first became free agents.
Finally, yes I know. The MLB playoffs is the great equalizer. I have always found it fascinating that this sport has a 162-game season where the cream inevitably rises to the top. But then you enter a best of 5 playoff series where if you have three bad days or encounter two hot pitchers, you’re done. This is why Florida has won two championships. They took advantage of their small window of opportunity the year they spent money and had good players and then they got hot at the right time. And this is why conversely why the Yankees have not won a championship in a decade. They make the playoffs every year but they have found themselves matching up against a red hot team that finds a way to win three or four games in a playoff series against them.
My vote is to contract all but the Yankees, Mets, Angels, Dodgers, Cubs, White Sox and Red Sox. Let those four cities have baseball and they can enjoy it in their own little worlds. Meanwhile the rest of the country can enjoy a true sports league like the NFL. Yankee and Red Sox fans can then walk around with that big trophy and the rest of us will say, “Who cares. When is the NFL draft?”
For those of you who don’t know (and you probably do because baseball fans get really annoyed with me), I base my standings predictions in April on how much team payrolls are. The higher the payroll, the higher in the standings you finish. And wouldn’t you know it. The standings are pretty much in order of how much teams spend.
And yet there are still fans who say team payroll has nothing to do with it. Are you serious? Do you honestly think that?
If so, I guess there is nothing else I can do but review the standings with you:
AL East-1st place Yankees, 2nd place Red Sox. Highest payroll Yankees, 2nd highest payroll Red Sox
AL Central-1st place Tigers, 2nd place White Sox. Highest payroll Tigers, 2nd highest payroll White Sox
AL West-1st place Angels, 2nd place Rangers, Highest payroll Angels, 2nd highest payroll Rangers.
Are you seeing a theme here?
NL East-1st place Phillies, 2nd place Braves. Highest payroll Mets, 2nd highest payroll Braves. 3rd highest payroll Phillies. The Mets have had serious injury issues this year. Enough said.
NL Central-1st place Cardinals, 2nd place Cubs. Highest payroll Cubs. 2nd highest payroll Cardinals.
NL West-1st place Dodgers, 2nd place Giants. Highest payroll Dodgers. 2nd highest payroll Giants.
Money buys you victories. Plain and simple. Are there other components? Of course there are. You need smart people running your organization. That is why the Twins do so well year after year and why the A’s used to do well. But the window of opportunity is small. They need everything to go right like the Rays last year. They are not going to be perennial World Series contenders. In fact, how many championships have those three teams won this decade? Zero. There you go.
And yes, you need to draft smart. The Yankee fans always say that they drafted Jeter and Pasada. And if other teams drafted this well, they would be just as good. I guarantee you that if Jeter and Pasada had been drafted by the Brewers and Pirates, they would still be in New York. There is no way those organizations could have kept those guys financially when they first became free agents.
Finally, yes I know. The MLB playoffs is the great equalizer. I have always found it fascinating that this sport has a 162-game season where the cream inevitably rises to the top. But then you enter a best of 5 playoff series where if you have three bad days or encounter two hot pitchers, you’re done. This is why Florida has won two championships. They took advantage of their small window of opportunity the year they spent money and had good players and then they got hot at the right time. And this is why conversely why the Yankees have not won a championship in a decade. They make the playoffs every year but they have found themselves matching up against a red hot team that finds a way to win three or four games in a playoff series against them.
My vote is to contract all but the Yankees, Mets, Angels, Dodgers, Cubs, White Sox and Red Sox. Let those four cities have baseball and they can enjoy it in their own little worlds. Meanwhile the rest of the country can enjoy a true sports league like the NFL. Yankee and Red Sox fans can then walk around with that big trophy and the rest of us will say, “Who cares. When is the NFL draft?”
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Vick vs. Stallworth
Michael Vick just finished serving two years in prison for running a dog fighting ring. In my opinion, he should have served this time for this outrageous crime. Justice was served. Dante Stallworth just finished serving a mont in prison for taking a human life. Are you kidding me? Since when is the life of many dogs worth more than a human life. Don't get me wrong. Both are heinous. But come on. How can Stallworth serve only one month?!?
One answer I get is because he killed this person while driving drunk. So another words because he was committing one crime (drinking in driving), he gets a lesser sentence for committing another crime (murder). That has never made too much sense to me. Yes, I do understand that he didn't intend on taking a life, but I don't have much compassion for someone who decides to get behind the wheel after drinking. The sentence should be MUCH more than one month. And quite honestly it should be longer than the two years Vick just served.
One answer I get is because he killed this person while driving drunk. So another words because he was committing one crime (drinking in driving), he gets a lesser sentence for committing another crime (murder). That has never made too much sense to me. Yes, I do understand that he didn't intend on taking a life, but I don't have much compassion for someone who decides to get behind the wheel after drinking. The sentence should be MUCH more than one month. And quite honestly it should be longer than the two years Vick just served.
Friday, July 3, 2009
New Manager, Same Lousy Concept
I am absolutely baffled by the Milwaukee Brewers. Last year they made a drastic move by firing manager Ned Yost with a few games left in the season. The move seemed to be simply to shake up the team, but later on we found out that ownership had some concerns about coaching decisions which I completely agreed with. I felt that Yost just let his hitters swing for the fences and never tried to manufacture runs. I felt that he did not work on defense enough with young players. I felt that he tried to ride pitchers for too long and didn’t analyze matchups carefully enough.
Now here we are with a new manager and well into the next season. And absolutely nothing has changed. This team still swings for the fences. They are near the top of the league in strikeouts and fly ball outs. They never bunt. They never steal bases. They never hit and run. This results in long offensive droughts where this team really struggles to score and win games.
Now I understand that power is a strength of this team and that you don’t want to run your way out of big innings because you end up hitting solo home runs because your guy got thrown out trying to steal second, but just hold up a second here. How many home runs do Craig Council and Jason Kendall hit. If you have a guy on first when these guys come up, why not try to move that runner up? And bat one of your faster guys like Corey Hart one spot before them in the lineup to set up that situation more often.
Defense continues to be an issue. And we seem to be content with our current pitching situation which in my opinion has already peaked. If we are going to rely on Suppan, Bush and Looper to be our 2-3-4 guys in a pennant race, we might as well do our usual Brewer salute to the better teams in our division and wish them well as we fall back into our usual position with the Pirates.
Now here we are with a new manager and well into the next season. And absolutely nothing has changed. This team still swings for the fences. They are near the top of the league in strikeouts and fly ball outs. They never bunt. They never steal bases. They never hit and run. This results in long offensive droughts where this team really struggles to score and win games.
Now I understand that power is a strength of this team and that you don’t want to run your way out of big innings because you end up hitting solo home runs because your guy got thrown out trying to steal second, but just hold up a second here. How many home runs do Craig Council and Jason Kendall hit. If you have a guy on first when these guys come up, why not try to move that runner up? And bat one of your faster guys like Corey Hart one spot before them in the lineup to set up that situation more often.
Defense continues to be an issue. And we seem to be content with our current pitching situation which in my opinion has already peaked. If we are going to rely on Suppan, Bush and Looper to be our 2-3-4 guys in a pennant race, we might as well do our usual Brewer salute to the better teams in our division and wish them well as we fall back into our usual position with the Pirates.
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