Category Archives: ‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball

Matt Smith’s Monday morning column, looking back at the previous week in MLB and looking ahead to the ‘early’ games scheduled for the week ahead

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: MLB 2013 rankings

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The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers got the 2013 MLB season underway last night (well, the early hours of this morning for us in the U.K).

As MLB Opening Day aligns neatly with the Easter Monday Bank Holiday, there’s no better time to launch my new MLB rankings feature for 2013.

So-called ‘power rankings’ are very popular in North American sports and whilst I’ve never quite taken to the ‘power’ part of the name, the lists make for a good discussion topic. I’ll therefore be updating my own MLB rankings over the course of the season, probably on a monthly basis.

I’m always conscious that lots of news stories flood out of MLB on a daily basis and, particularly with the time difference to take into account, it’s not always easy to keep up with the action, especially for newcomers to the sport. Through my rankings, the aim is to provide short capsules for each team that review the past month, functioning as either as a ‘cheat sheet’ or a starting point to find out more depending on how you want to use them.

This debut version provides a glimpse at every team’s off-season moves and their prospects for the coming year, as I evaluate them at least. The rankings are subjective to a large extent and individual placements shouldn’t be taken too literally as they’ll often be little difference between teams within a cluster of 4 or 5.

1. Washington Nationals

The Nationals were the best team in the Majors over the course of the 2012 regular season and a 3-2 NLDS defeat to the Cardinals made sure they didn’t rest on their laurels over the offseason. Denard Span was acquired from the Twins to take over in centrefield and then the Nationals went out and signed premium closer Rafael Soriano.

Stephen Strasburg will be free to pitch all season long:  a major boost in terms of on-the-field performance and avoiding off-the-field distractions following the farce the Nationals created with their badly-managed strict innings limit last year. The ultra-talented Bryce Harper also looks ready to build on his hugely impressive rookie season. Quite simply, Washington’s roster looks strong in all departments and they will take some stopping this season.

2. Toronto Blue Jays

There’s no doubt that the Blue Jays have improved their current MLB roster more than any other team over the offseason. What we don’t yet know is how the new players – Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera, R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle etc – will come together as a team under new manager John Gibbons, making a surprising return after managing the team between 2005 and 2008.

Injuries resulted in the Blue Jays’ season completely falling apart during the second half last year (30-46, after going 43-43 during the first) so their 73-89 record wasn’t totally representative of the talent they did have when healthy. They’ll need to add at least 20 wins to their 2012 total to live up to the billing as AL favourites. That’s possible if the new recruits play to their potential and the holdovers find form and fitness and it will be intriguing to see if they can do it.

3. Detroit Tigers

Being swept in a World Series is a devastating way to end what was otherwise a successful season for the Tigers. They’ve kept hold of mid-season recruit Anibal Sanchez, signed outfielder Torii Hunter and can welcome back Victor Martinez after he missed the whole of the 2012 season with a knee injury. Whilst the closer role is still unsettled, everything else about the team points to another postseason visit.

4. Atlanta Braves

Last year they were victims of the harsh, if exciting, new Wild Card ‘play-in’ game. They’ve bagged a pair of Uptons to off-set the loss of free agent Michael Bourn, although it remains to be seen how they will replace the leadership of Martin Prado (traded) and Chipper Jones (retired). Talent across the roster should ensure they are strong postseason contenders again, with all eyes on how Kris Medlen follows up his incredible run of pitching performances during the second half of 2012.

5. Cincinnati Reds

The Reds won the NL Central despite a .208 batting average and .254 on-base percentage from players batting 1st in the lineup. That was quite a trick but not one they’re going to try again as Cincinnati acquired Shin-Soo Choo from Cleveland. With a good lead-off hitter and, hopefully, Joey Votto fit all season long, the Reds should be well set to defend their division crown and to avenge their NLDS defeat to the Giants.

6. L.A. Dodgers

You don’t spend the money the Dodgers have done over the past year and expect to finish second. With Zack Greinke and Korean Hyun-Jin Ryu added to 2012 mid-season recruits, Hanley Ramirez, Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett, manager Don Mattingly knows that – fairly or not – he’ll be under great scrutiny if his team doesn’t lead the way in the NL West. Injuries to Greinke and Ramirez are a reminder that whilst this talent-laden roster should make its way to the playoffs, nothing is guaranteed.

7. San Francisco Giants

It seems to be the Giants’ lot to win a World Series and then be damned with faint praise. It happened in 2010 and again after their 4-0 sweep of Detroit in 2012. Still, Giants fans had the joy of celebrating their victory and can bask in the glow of being reigning champs, so why care what anyone else thinks?

The Giants have concentrated on keeping the team together over the offseason, re-signing Marco Scutaro, Angel Pagan and Jeremy Affeldt, whilst signing free agent Angel Pagan one year after trading him to the New York Mets. They won it all with pretty much the same team last season, so they could do it again in 2013.

8. L.A. Angels of Anaheim

The Angels expected much more than a third-placed finish in the AL West after signing Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson over the 2011/12 offseason, witnessing Mike Trout having a historically brilliant season and adding former Cy Young winner Zack Greinke during the season. Further disappointment followed when the Dodgers gazumped them for Greinke’s signature over the off-season, but they retaliated by taking Josh Hamilton away from Texas and they will be intent on making up for what was a lost season last year.

9. Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays’ ability to compete in the AL East consistently over the past 5 seasons, despite being at a significant financial disadvantage, has earned them the respect of everyone in baseball.  That’s something the Rays should be proud of, but I’m sure the plaudits make them all the more desperate to earn a prize or two as well. As is common for Tampa Bay, they’ve lost key players over the offseason, notably B.J. Upton as a free agent and trading away pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis. With reigning Cy Young award winner David Price leading a talented pitching staff, they’ll brush off the departures and get back to beating the odds once again.

10. St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals let a 3-1 NLCS lead slip against the San Francisco Giants last year: a painful way to end their bid to retain their World Series title. Still, getting deep into the postseason despite losing Albert Pujols as a free agent during the preceding offseason showed that the Cardinals are a resilient organization. So far this offseason, serious injuries have struck Chris Carpenter (quite probably ending his career) and Rafael Furcal (Tommy John surgery meaning he’s out for the season), whilst David Freese and Jason Motte are likely to start the season on the DL. They are using their organizational depth to plug the gaps – particularly in the form of promising pitchers Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal – and you wouldn’t bet against them being at the sharp-end once again this year.

11. Oakland A’s

The A’s mixed-and-matched their batting lineup and pitching staff to great effect last season, surprising everyone by winning 94 games and taking the AL West ahead of the Rangers and Angels. Oakland haven’t lost many key contributors over the offseason – Brandon McCarthy being the main one and even he missed a number of games through injury last year – and have added some good pieces in Jed Lowrie and Chris Young. The Angels and Rangers are still being touted ahead of them coming into this season, but maybe Bob Melvin can weave his magic again.

12. Texas Rangers

They may have won 93 games and finished ahead of the LA Angels, but 2012 was a relative disaster for the team that had tasted World Series heartbreak in both of the previous two seasons. A late season collapse helped the A’s beat them to the AL West title and the Rangers then fell victim to the new Wild Card ‘play-in’, having their season ended abruptly by the Orioles.

That disappointment has carried over into the offseason, losing Josh Hamilton as a free agent to the Angels and missing out on a host of free agent targets, most notably Zack Greinke. A.J. Pierzynski and Lance Berkman have been added to the offence and Texas will be desperate just to put the last 12 months behind them and get back onto the field.

13. New York Yankees

It’s been an off-season of injuries and departures in the Bronx, making it easy to forget they led the AL in wins last season (95). Their season may start slowly as the likes of Jeter, Granderson and Teixeira make their way back from injuries and this is clearly a weaker roster than we’ve come to expect over the past 15 years or so from the Yankees. However, when healthy, they’ve still got a strong core and you can never write them off.

14. Milwaukee Brewers

The Brew Crew led the NL in runs scored last season (776) and whilst Corey Hart will start the season on the Disabled List, the offence should still be potent once more. Milwaukee’s season will be determined by their pitching and the recent addition of Kyle Lohse was a needed and welcome signing that should help them to stay in the race, even if they seem likely to fall a little short.

15. Boston Red Sox

Boston consigned a miserable 2012 to the dustbin by ditching manager Bobby Valentine, replacing him with former pitching coach John Farrell, and they’ve added some experienced players in Shane Victorino, Mike Napoil, Ryan Dempster and Joel Hanrahan. The changes they’ve made have been positive, but the Red Sox require returns to top form and fitness from Jacoby Ellsbury, David Ortiz (already hobbled by an achilles injury), Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz to quickly move from a 93-loss season to one in which they can compete for a playoff spot.

16. Arizona Diamondbacks

After finishing atop the NL West in 2011, the D-Backs slipped back to a level 81-81 record in 2012. Trading away talent in Justin Upton, Chris Young and Trevor Bauer wasn’t the obvious way to get the team headed back in the right direction, but that’s what they’ve done. Brandon McCarthy, Heath Bell and Tony Sipp have been added to the pitching staff, with Cody Ross and Martin Prado joining the batting lineup. Kirk Gibson has a good all-round roster to work with in 2013 and they could be one of the most underrated teams coming into the season.

17. Baltimore Orioles

The surprise package of 2012, suggestions that the Orioles’ success was a flash in the pan will be put to the test in 2013 as they have basically kept things the same over the offseason with no major joiners or leavers. They can’t expect to go 29-9 in one-run games again, but the lack of name-value shouldn’t make opponents underrate their solid pitching staff that could be the bedrock of another good campaign.

18. Chicago White Sox

The White Sox spent 126 days at the top of the AL Central last season, only to concede the place to eventual winners Detroit on 25 September. Chicago lost catcher A.J. Pierzynski as a free agent over the off-season and their main work was in agreeing contract extensions with pitchers Jake Peavy and Chris Sale so they have largely stood still. Detroit have improved and were generally seen to have underachieved during the regular season last year – keeping the White Sox in the race – so Chicago may not have done enough to keep up with their main division rival.

19. Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies’ run of NL East division titles ended at 5 as the team dropped from 102 wins in 2011 to 81 in 2012. Unlike last year, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley enter the season healthy, but Roy Halladay’s poor performances in Spring Training have done little to quell fears that his decline last season is going to continue, rather than it just being a temporary blip. If Doc can’t find a cure and the offence doesn’t really fire, the Phillies will likely be a .500 team once again. The more positive prognosis would be somewhere around  the 86-87 win mark, which in all likelihood would leave them third in the NL East, hoping that other teams underperform and make the second Wild Card a potential target.

20. Cleveland Indians

Scooping up a double World Series-winning manager (Terry Francona) and two of the top free agent position players (Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn) is a good way to plenty of positivity heading into a new season. Brett Myers and Scott Kazmir have been added to the starting rotation and a lot of Cleveland’s hopes will rest on Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez bouncing back from disappointing campaigns last year.

21. Kansas City Royals

The Royals’ decision to trade away much-hyped prospect Wil Meyers for pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis was one of the big talking points of the winter. There’s no doubt that the Royals acquired two good pitchers, the question is whether the additions are enough – alongside hoped for improvement from the likes of Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas – to push the team into Wild Card contention. The Royals haven’t made the postseason since the team’s only World Series title was won in 1985.

22. Seattle Mariners

Is 2013 the year when the Mariners field a half-decent offence once again? Felix Hernandez’s perfect game last season was a wonderful moment, but the fact that he was only backed by a single run during that game against the Rays, and that it came in an otherwise mediocre season for the team, encapsulated Seattle’s problems of late.

King Felix signed a seven-year contract extension with the M’s over the offseason . They’ve moved the fences in at Safeco Field, traded for Kendrys Morales and Michael Morse and re-signed Raul Ibanez to try to jump-start the offence to back their pitching. The strength of the AL West will make moving far forward in the standings difficult, but they deserve to see some benefit from trying to address their weaknesses.

23. Pittsburgh Pirates

The Buccos’ 2012 must have left their fans wondering if they will ever break their sequence of losing seasons. They were only 3 games behind the Reds in the NL Central at the end of July and a .500 season looked the very least they would obtain. They then went 20-39 the rest of the way to end up with a 79-83 record that was somehow both better than any season they’d had since 1997 and at the same time more disappointing than any season during that spell. Former Yankee catcher Russell Martin is the only significant addition they’ve made over the offseason and their hopes of progress revolve around how quickly their two outstanding pitching prospects, Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon, make it to the Big Leagues.

24. San Diego Padres

It’s been a quiet offseason for the Padres, with the main news being the recent injury to last year’s leading contributor Chase Headley. The third baseman is expected to miss the first month of the season in what is most likely to be another rebuilding year in San Diego. Injuries to Carlos Quentin and Casey Kelly have also added to a Spring Training that the Padres will be glad to leave behind.

25. New York Mets

It was somehow fitting that no sooner had the Mets’ David Wright earned Captain America plaudits for his World Baseball Classic performances, he suffered an injury and brought an abrupt end to a morsel of enjoyment Mets fans could take from seeing their man leading the way for the national team. That followed R.A. Dickey’s Cy Young winning-season being followed by him getting shown the door, traded to Toronto. Pitchers like Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler offer promise for the future, but don’t expect much from the season ahead.

26. Chicago Cubs

The first year of the Theo Epstein/Jed Hoyer rebuilding project in Chicago brought predictable results at the Major League level (a 101-loss season). They took the opportunity to invest in Edwin Jackson (4-year, $52m) over the offseason and he’s one of several players that will be worth watching at Wrigley, including Jeff Samardzija who will hope to prove his promising first season as a starter can continue into a second. Even so, the Cubs can no longer rely on the abject Astros to keep them from the bottom spot in the NL West.

27. Minnesota Twins

The Twins have finished bottom of the AL Central in the last two years and they’ll be there again in 2013, although with some exciting young talent on the way. One of which, outfielder Aaron Hicks, has made the Opening Day roster and along with Mauer and Morneau (unless the latter gets traded at some point) he’ll be one of several reasons to watch a Twins game or two this season.

28. Colorado Rockies

Rookie manager Walt Weiss will not have to manage any great expectations in 2013. The Rockies finished 30 games behind the Giants in the NL West last season and have not made any notable additions to their roster over the offseason. They will hope Troy Tulowitzki recovers from an injury-hit 2012 that restricted him to just 47 games and that some of their younger players can at least gain valuable experience during what will be a testing season.

29. Miami Marlins

This time a year ago everything seemed to be going right for the Marlins. Fast forward twelve months and Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle and Emilio Bonifacio are now all in Toronto, Heath Bell is in Arizona, Ozzie Guillen is unemployed and the Marlins are back to rebuilding again as if it was all one big dream. Giancarlo Stanton is still around to provide something exciting for the few fans that will be at Marlins Ballpark this season, but rookie manager Mike Redmond knows this is going to be a year full of losses.

30. Houston Astros

The Astros’ move to the AL West should be a cause of excitement for the team, but instead it is likely to cause trepidation considering they lost 107 games in the weaker NL Central last year. Houston are in a complete rebuilding effort and, excruciating as it will be for their fans to sit through, this is going to be a long season for rookie manager Bo Porter to navigate his team through.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: the Chapman conundrum

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To start or not to start, that was the question being pondered by Aroldis Chapman and the Cincinnati Reds.

The Cuban pitcher came into Spring Training preparing to be moved into a starting pitching role, just as he did a year ago.

As in 2012, that decision has been reversed and Chapman will once ago serve up his flame-throwing act in the ninth inning of games, rather than taking a spot in the Reds’ starting rotation.

The decision, announced on Friday, was not a surprise as Chapman had revealed a week earlier that his preference was to continue as the team’s closer.

The Reds stated in response that a decision would be made in the best interests of the team, not solely determined by the player, and that was emphasised again by General Manager Walt Jocketty when he confirmed Chapman’s role for the season ahead. However once the pitcher was sure enough that he was prepared to state his preference publicly, it became difficult for the Reds to do anything else.

Whilst no team wants to be seen to bow to the whims of an individual player, it isn’t a sign of weakness to take their views into account. Manager Dusty Baker stated “you want a guy at a comfort level” and although that applies to some extent to every player, a good manager will know which players are particularly sensitive to this.

It’s common across all team sports. Kevin Pieterson has been criticised in some quarters over the years for preferring to bat at 4 rather than 3 for England in Test cricket, but he’s a mercurial talent, capable of winning a game virtually single-handed when at his best. If batting at 4 is where he’s happiest, for whatever reason, it’s counter-productive to cloud his thinking by putting him in a different spot. What’s ‘best for the team’ is to get the best out of your best players.

If Chapman really wasn’t convinced about starting – maybe, away from what he would admit publicly, he doesn’t have confidence in his secondary pitches, for example – then forcing him into it wouldn’t help anyone, other than the Reds’ opponents.

The mystery with this argument – if true – is that this is the second time in two years that the Reds have pushed ahead with the plan to convert Chapman into a starter. They aborted the idea last year predominantly because Ryan Madson, who they had brought in to become their new closer, suffered a season-ending injury before throwing a pitch for the team.  They signed Jonathan Broxton to a three-year/$21m contract this winter, once again as a clear intent to fill the closer role with another pitcher.

It doesn’t immediately make much sense to act in this way unless Cincinnati were confident that Chapman was fully on board with the plan. Deciding to keep him as the closer because he’s comfortable in that role is justifiable, but coming to that conclusion little more than a week before the new season begins is strange to say the least.

Cincinnati have been criticised for their decision because there’s a convincing argument that a good starting pitcher, throwing 200 innings, is more valuable to a team than a closer pitching only 70. Many applauded the Reds’ initial plan to convert Chapman into a starter precisely for this reason and therefore the way they have backtracked leaves them – and the perception is that it’s mainly Baker that wanted to keep him as the closer – open to the claim that they are failing to appreciate the worth of a starter compared to a closer.

That claim may be completely off-base. It could be the worth of a starting pitcher that made the Reds try to coax Chapman into letting go of his misgivings once again. In that scenario, the signing of Broxton can be seen as the Reds trying to focus Chapman’s attention on becoming a starter and perhaps more could have been done to reinforce the message.

As with every roster decision, ultimately it will be judged by how the team’s season turns out.

Cincinnati had the most stable starting rotation in the Majors last season. Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, Homer Bailey, Bronson Arroyo and Mike Leake together started all but one of the Reds’ 162 regular season games, the other outing being a Major League debut for 27-year old Todd Redmond in the second game of a day-night doubleheader on 18 August.

All five of the main pitchers are with the Reds again this season – it was presumed that Leake would be the man to make way for Chapman – and they should form a quality rotation again. With Chapman and Broxton at the sharp-end of the bullpen, the Reds will have a strong core to their pitching staff.

Keeping Chapman as the closer may not be the optimum strategy, but the Reds are still in a good position heading into the season and if they have the lead in a deciding World Series game, Reds fans will be glad to be able to call on their Cuban Missile.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Classic by name …

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As all good things must come to an end, so we have reached the climax of the 2013 World Baseball Classic.

As with the two previous editions in 2006 and 2009, this year’s tournament has been a triumph; a wonderful complement to the normal baseball season.

And it isn’t just the juxtaposition with the carefree exhibition Spring Training games that makes the WBC contests so enthralling at this time of the year.

There’s a real sense that the WBC is something different. MLB is a fantastic competition, but this international event reminds us all that not everything baseball-related has to follow the tried-and-tested ‘MLB way’.

The crowds in Japan and Taiwan produced a unique atmosphere notably different to what we witness in games Stateside, where the inspiration-less Yankee Stadium ‘Bleacher Creature’ Roll Call somehow passes as the epitome of fan interaction.  The Japanese style of having unique songs for every player is much more in line with the European sports fan experience, albeit presumably the Japanese version being a bit more polite.

Similarly the exuberant celebrations of the Dominican Republic team have led to a certain amount of ‘tut-tutting’ from the MLB traditionalists. It might be reasonable to raise an eyebrow at such behaviour when it comes in a regular season MLB game – where 1 game of 162 normally doesn’t matter so much – however the WBC is an event that comes around only once every four years. It’s a rare chance for these players to represent their country and condemning them for getting a bit overexcited at times is wrong. Anyone that believes their actions are in any way ‘showing up their opponent’ is being pathetically precious.

One of the great things about the WBC is that it brings together different baseball cultures and they should be embraced, not curtailed.

Similarly, the short format structure to the WBC is something different to the normal MLB regular season, and even most of the postseason.

Anything can happen in a tournament containing relatively few games and that’s something which doesn’t fit neatly into the world of advanced statistical analysis that demands significant sample sizes and a measured focus on what is meaningful rather than mere chance. It’s a fascinating area of the baseball landscape, a real treasure trove that anyone who thinks about the game should delve into with gusto. However, it shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying the sheer fun of a random ballgame.

Nelson Figueroa’s six shut-out innings for Puerto Rico that helped to knock out the U.S. are not indicative of his future projected performances, but it was brilliant to watch regardless, just like Bradford City’s incredible run to the League Cup final was enjoyable precisely because it was completely against the odds.

Cup upsets are a treasured part of football history and cup competitions are prized because they give teams something to dream about even if their league campaign isn’t going to plan. Reading Anthony Rizzo’s gushing comments about his experience with Italy brought to mind how the WBC can act in a similar way for some players.

The Chicago Cubs may surprise us all with a playoff run this year, but the odds are Rizzo and his teammates will be playing out the string in September.  His performances with the Cubs are what he gets paid for and every MLB game is important to those playing in them, but it was clear that Rizzo relished the opportunity to play in such an event:

“That’s something I wouldn’t be able to get here, even in the regular season,” Rizzo said of the intensity of elimination games. “[During the season], if you win or lose a game in the later innings, you know you can still play tomorrow. This is kind of like a playoff atmosphere — you lose, you’re done”.

Much has been made about whether the U.S. cares about the WBC and indeed whether this matters or not. Fans of most North American sports have limited exposure to international competition and it is far from being an engrained part of the sporting pyramid as we are used to in the U.K.

MLB has been the be-all and end-all for over a century for most baseball fans in the States and three WBC’s couldn’t possibly turn that on its head. A fan’s primary loyalty is normally to their chosen team – most football fans would trade an England triumph, not likely I know, for some silverware for their club – and as there’s no obvious time to play the WBC outside of Spring Training, we have to accept that a fan would sooner their star player rest a slight injury to prepare for the season ahead rather than risk playing in the WBC.

The WBC is mainly designed to expand the appeal of baseball to emerging baseball nations, so a lukewarm reception from fans in the States shouldn’t be too problematic (I’ve read comments from plenty of Americans who have loved the tournament, so the ‘U.S. doesn’t care’ line is overblown in any case). Where it could have a negative effect is on the standing of the event among potential participants and here it all comes down to the players being advocates for the tournament.

So long as young players like Rizzo are greatly enjoying the event, and All-Stars like Brandon Phillips are describing it as “the highlight of my career”, the WBC will continue to be a great spectacle and, in time, will only grow in importance among players and fans alike.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: The new MLB schedule

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There are many things on the minds of baseball fans during March.

We listen lazily to Spring Training games, grimacing at the sound of potential injuries whilst pondering Opening Day rosters and talented prospects that may join the Big League club later in the year.

Many of us become engrossed in fantasy baseball drafts, creating additional rosters to bring us additional joy and frustration.

And as the Spring Training games begin to lose their attraction, our eyes turn to the regular season schedule. Opening series, potential key games against rivals and the all-important – or at least we hope it will be important – September run-in all grab our attention.

Every year in recent times, fans from several teams have had reason to grumble when looking at how the 2,430 regular season games have been distributed. Logic and fairness would dictate that two teams battling for the same division title should play the same teams the same amount of times, but that’s not the case in MLB. The ‘unbalanced schedule’ could – and did – leave one team playing a more difficult, stronger schedule than that played by another team competing for the same prize, especially due to the distribution of Interleague games.

This unfairness was one of the reasons for the Houston Astros’ move from the NL Central to the AL West from the 2013 season onwards and the subsequent remodelling of the way every team’s schedule is created.  The changes have not eliminated the potential for unfairness – that would only truly be possible if there was a change in the number of games played or the number of teams – but it has made the schedule a little less complicated.

Last year’s introduction of the second Wild Card had the welcome benefit of increasing the importance of winning a division once again. With that being the case, games against division rivals take on an even greater significance. One of the problems under the old system was that the differing sizes of divisions (4 teams in the AL West, 6 in the NL Central etc) led to differing numbers of division-only games.

Now that there are 6 divisions of 5 teams, every team will play 19 games against each of the other 4 teams in their own division.

Division-only games will account for 76 games in each team’s schedule and they are joined by 66 games combined against the other 10 teams in the same league. You don’t need to be a maths whizz to work out that 66 doesn’t divide equally among 10 teams, so a team will play some of those 10 teams 6 times and the rest 7 times each. That means two competing division teams may well play league-only schedules of slightly different qualities, but only by a couple of games. And with 19 games against your closest division competitor, you’ve got plenty of opportunities to make any slight unfairness irrelevant.

Adding 76 division-only games to the 66 games against the other 10 same-league teams makes for a total of 142. That leaves 20 games against teams from the other league, an increase of 2 interleague games on the previous schedule for most teams.

Interleague play is a divisive topic, whether it’s due to harkening back to pre-1997 days when AL and NL teams would only meet once per year in the World Series, the impact of bringing together leagues playing under slightly different rules (i.e. the Designated Hitter in the AL), the scheduling imbalance Interleague games often created, or a combination of all three.

The commercial attractiveness of the ‘local rivalry’ aspect of some Interleague series is there for all to see (NY Mets and Yankees, Chicago Cubs and White Sox etc), but the competitive imbalance they can create along with the artificial rivalries (e.g. San Diego Padres v Seattle Mariners) are less welcome.

It’s clear that MLB is committed to Interleague play and the ‘local rivalries’, although the latter is being reduced from 6 games to 4 from 2013 onwards. Every team is matched with a team from the corresponding division in the other league and the 4 rivalry games will be played in one block at the end of May, 2 games at one team’s ballpark and then 2 games at the other.

The remaining 16 games of a team’s schedule will be played against the five teams from one of the divisions in the other league. This will be done on a rotating three –year basis, with the 2013 match-ups being NL West and AL East, NL Central and AL West, NL East and AL Central. A team will play 1 of the 5 teams 4 times, and the other 4 teams 3 times each. So, again, two competing teams in a division will not play exactly the same games, but it will be very close to it.

The end result is that the vast majority of the schedule played by teams in the same division will be the same and – what to me is the biggest improvement – where there are some minor differences, that is at least within the confines of a broader structure that is the same for every team in the Majors: 76 games against your division rivals, 66 against the rest of your league plus 20 Interleague games.

It’s not perfect, but it’s sensible. That’s a big improvement on the previous MLB schedule.

Rounding the bases

The one unavoidable sticking point to the new schedule is that now we don’t have an even number of teams in each league, whenever all 30 teams are playing on a given day throughout the season, one of the games will be an Interleague contest.  It will become a standard part of the season, rather than a special part of the calendar (except for the rivalry games), and will result in some teams playing under the other league’s rules at significant parts of the season.

The biggest concern some have is the prospect of a contending AL team needing to play without their DH at the end of the season. That will be the case in 2013; however the final Interleague series of the season will see Detroit travelling to Miami. DH or not, the Tigers would probably take that as a promising match-up to bring their regular season to a close.

The Yankees’ injury plagued offseason continued this past week with Mark Teixeira injuring his wrist and GM Brian Cashman breaking his ankle. Cashman’s injury will not affect his work, but the same can’t be said for Teixeira and that’s the last thing New York needed. The Yankees’ projected Opening Day roster looks the weakest that the franchise has fielded for many a year.

A couple of weeks ago, I noted in this column Hector Noesi’s horror show in his first Spring Training outing. His performance this past Friday against the Oakland A’s was a good news/bad news affair. The bad news: Noesi gave up three home runs over two innings. The good news: the game was rained out after four innings so the outing didn’t count towards his Spring Training stats. The good news story doesn’t last long though as the effect was to bring his Spring ERA so far down from 19.06 to 14.73. You shouldn’t put too much store into Spring numbers, but the Mariners will certainly want to see some improvement in Noesi’s case.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Injuries and Bad Karma

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The New York Yankees had already experienced plenty of bad luck with injuries in recent months, so the outcome of Curtis Granderson’s first plate appearance in Spring Training was almost to be expected.

The Blue Jays’ J.A. Happ looked at the low-and-away target from his catcher and let loose a pitch that sailed high and in. It was too far in for the Yankees and Granderson’s liking. The ball made a deadening thud off his right forearm and Grandy immediately let go of the bat before grimacing his way to first base.

X-rays revealed a fracture putting him on a 10-week timeline before he will make it back into the Big League lineup sometime in early May, subject to any setbacks along the way.

The Yankees had been toying with moving Granderson from his customary centre-field position into left, allowing the better-fielding Brett Gardner to swap over. Gardner will now get the chance to play in centre when the regular season begins, but Granderson’s injury may make them revert back to type once he returns from injury. Spring Training would have been the ideal time for him to get used to playing left-field, a position he has very limited experience with, and for the pair to get used to playing together in that formation.

Asking Granderson to move to left-field with limited practice time would be less than ideal, although they may have little choice.

The plan was being discussed as it’s expected that the Yankees will need to save every run they can this season, fielding an offence far-less potent than it has been in the past.

The absence of Granderson’s bat in the early going will make that even more pronounced. He led the team in 2012 with 43 longballs and there was already talk of a power outage in the Bronx before his injury, with the team having lost Russell Martin (21 HR), Raul Ibanez (19), Nick Swisher (24), Eric Chavez (16) and Andruw Jones (14) over the off-season, and Alex Rodriguez (18) continuing to be plagued by the injury curse. A-Rod may be back in late June or early July, but there’s no telling how productive he will be as the veteran falls victim to the inevitable ravages of Father Time.

Whilst it’s normally just perception rather than a meaningful trend, it often seems that when one player goes down to an injury, their team is then hit by further setbacks.

The Milwaukee Brewers are a good – not ‘good’ from their perspective – recent example of this. First baseman Corey Hart suffered a knee injury before Spring Training began, but the blow was softened a little by Mat Gamel seemingly coming back healthy after missing most of the 2012 season with his own knee injury. Relief soon turned to dejection as Gamel’s dreadful bad luck continued as he reinjured the knee and is set to miss yet another season.

This past weekend brought more bad news for the Brewers as Ryan Braun, Aramis Ramirez and Yovani Gallardo reported minor ailments, in Gallardo’s case a groin strain that may result in him withdrawing from Mexico’s World Baseball Classic roster.  Even though none of the injuries are serious, they will remain a concern until the players prove those concerns to be unfounded.

Breakout performances and slumps always catch the eye, but keeping key players healthy and on the field is an even more important factor in a team having a good season.

The Cleveland Indians’ pre-season optimism was noted in this column last week. That optimism was quickly followed by Chris Perez’s right-shoulder strain that could make him a doubt for Opening Day. One minor injury in Spring Training shouldn’t deflate Cleveland fans at all, but shoulder problems are never a good sign for a pitcher and it’s easy for pessimism to take hold, particularly for a team that hasn’t been competitive in the last couple of seasons. The surprise of a team actually showing signs of promise can make the mental scars of long losing seasons all the more sensitive.

‘You know what our luck’s like, the bubble will burst’.

Yes, the fickle finger of fate looms large when it comes to injuries. The ‘Why me? Why now?’ unfairness of it all compels players and fans to find an explanation.

In the Miami Marlins’ first Spring Training game, newly-acquired catcher Jeff Mathis suffered a broken collarbone after getting hit by a foul-tip. If Mathis was a mere innocent victim as the baseball gods punished the Marlins for their miserly off-season, we can only be glad that this was the required sacrifice – a back-up catcher getting an injury that shouldn’t lead to any long-term damage – rather than the pitch that collided with Giancarlo Stanton’s helmet.

Even the Marlins’ bad karma didn’t warrant their star young slugger to suffer a concussion (or worse) and all of the dreadful consequences that it can bring to a career and quality of life.

Thankfully on that occasion, luck was on our side. For your chosen team to do well this season, they’ll need good fortune to find them too.

Rounding the bases

Matt Garza can be added to the injured list, as of Sunday evening. The Cubs expect the right-handed pitcher to miss the first month of the season due to a “strained left lat”, the “lat” being his Lattissimus dorsi muscle.

Chien-Ming Wang has had his own injury struggles over the years, but his impressive outing for Chinese Taipei in the World Baseball Classic on Saturday suggested that he’s still worth a look from Major League teams. Whilst the Australian line-up clearly isn’t of Big League quality, his sinker was working well and there will be more than one MLB team willing to take a chance on him.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim paid Mike Trout $482.5k for his incredible 2012 season. His financial reward? A $10k bonus for winning the AL Rookie of the Year Award and a raise of $27.5k, a mere $20k increase on the Major League minimum.

His agent was as unimpressed as you would expect him to be.

Trout will be earning the equivalent of approximately £6.5k per week this season. For comparison, the average Premier League wage is thought to be just over £22k per week, with the average Championship wage being just over £4k.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Back on the diamond

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“Happy new year!”

To the uninitiated, Oakland A’s co-commentator Ray Fosse’s choice of opening phrase on Saturday would have seemed completely bizarre. Yet to his fellow broadcasters and all of us A’s fans listening, Fosse had got the sentiment just right.

We might have been 54 days into the 2013 calendar year, but Oakland’s first Spring Training game was the true beginning of the year.

For fans of any sport, the calendar is dictated by the season’s schedule rather than something as arbitrary as 31 December turning to 1 January. The effect is all the more pronounced in baseball because of the way the games keep on coming. This isn’t a case of a pre-season friendly one day, backed up by another seven days later over the course of a month before the competitive action begins.

Day One of Spring Training in baseball heralds the start of a daily routine –peppered with the occasional single day off here and there –that will last until the end of September, or into October for the lucky ten making it to the postseason.

Saturday was the first full day of all 30 teams taking to the field, but Friday was the first day of 2013 when you could listen to live baseball once again.

Spring Training is a time of optimism for every team and for some that optimism is better placed than for others.

The Cleveland Indians’ radio team on WTAM had every reason to be full of the joys of spring, even if the 2013 season may not end up with the Tribe pegging a playoff place. They had lived through the daily drudgery of last September, coming off a disastrous 5-24 August, with a team out of contention and no immediate hopes of making a splash in the coming offseason.

All it took was to read out the starting lineup for their spring opener against the Cincinnati Reds to put those desperate days behind them. “Wow, do things change in a short amount of time”, remarked one of the commentary team.

The WTAM crew were especially energised by their feeling that “there’s finally some personality in the clubhouse”. That’s particularly important for those broadcasting every day, but there was also a keen sense that there was a completely different atmosphere around the team, primarily due to the “non-stop talker” Nick Swisher. The commentators were quick to point out that personality doesn’t win you ballgames and Swisher, like the other new recruits, has to play well first and foremost. However if he performs on the field then maybe, just maybe, the energy and enthusiasm he and others can bring to the clubhouse can help the team too.

The early Spring Training games give fans the chance to see new players, and old players, in their new uniforms. It was typical that the first person to step into the batting box against Cleveland was the former Indian Shin-Soo Choo. He led off the game against Geovany Soto, something that momentarily caught me off guard when considering the unlikely prospect of the Texas Rangers’ catcher of the same name having changed teams and positions without me realising it.

Confusion comes easily at the beginning of Spring Training, as new Cleveland outfielders Michael Bourn and Drew Stubbs found to their cost when a fly ball landed between them. It was the classic radio commentary moment when the relaxed tone of an impending easy catch suddenly leaps in volume as “THE BALL DROPS BETWEEN THEM!”.

New outfielders were also causing confusion in the Atlanta Braves’ game against the Detroit Tigers, although this time it was among the Braves’ WFOM commentary team.

The first fly ball to left-centre posed the dilemma as to how they should call plays with two Uptons converging in the outfield. The obvious choice of referring to them as Justin and B.J. left one of the commentators a little nervous, joking that he didn’t know them well enough to be on first-name terms just yet. His colleague helpfully suggested he should take the Uptons out for a meal to get to know them a bit better. Perhaps B.J. could find a few dollars from his $75m contract to pick up the bill for that.

The WFOM team soon moved on from the Upton dilemma as the Braves’ pitching staff flirted with a no-hitter that the Tigers broke up in the top of the eighth inning. It’s a standard line in every commentary or game report that pitchers are ahead of the hitters early in Spring Training. There’s a certain logic behind the statement and it’s often true; however it can seem like a curse to a pitcher that has a bad outing.

The Seattle Mariners’ Hector Noesi was the first pitcher of 2013 to bemoan such bad luck. He gave up a grand slam to the San Diego Padres’ Jed Gyorko before departing with six runs against his name (4 earned) and only two outs recorded.

Thankfully for Noesi, he’ll be able to fall back on the argument that he’s just starting out, getting rid of the rust and maybe working on a new pitch without worrying about the results. The pressure and tension of the regular season can wait for now.

This is the time of year when we’re all just glad to have baseball back with us once again.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Hope in Spring

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‘Hope springs eternal’, but in baseball spring is an eternal source of hope.

The sun beats down onto the backs of returning ballplayers in Arizona and Florida, some of the recipients driven by a winter of frustration, some emboldened by the confidence of success from the previous year.

It is the sense of renewal that makes spring such a glorious part of the baseball calendar. Everything starts again and that means anything is possible; however the past is always present in the mind and every player will have something to prove on the back of the 2012 performance.

Here are six players whose 2012 seasons, for differing reasons, will make following their fortunes in 2013 all the more intriguing.

Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)

When we witness a player excelling at a young age it is too tantalizing not to look ahead and wonder just how good he will become. Sportsmen often hit their peak in their late-twenties, so it is natural to see Mike Trout’s incredible performance as a 20 year-old in 2012 as a starting point for our expectations.

Yet how realistic would that be? Whilst experience and physical maturity could hone Trout’s remarkable talent even further, the level of competition in MLB must put a limit on how far he can improve.

It’s possible that Trout could have a long and successful career and never quite top 2012. If we use Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as our measure then Trout’s season (10.7 WAR) is the joint-17th highest in a single season since the end of World War Two. Of all the many thousands of individual player seasons from 1946 onwards, only 16 have been better judged by WAR.

Upon considering that staggering fact, no baseball fan can help but be fascinated by what Trout will serve up as an encore in 2013.

Roy Halladay (Philadelphia Phillies)

Whilst Trout was dazzling as a young star in the AL West, Halladay was struggling as a veteran star in the NL East.  2012 arguably was his worst full season since 2000.

A tough year as a 24 year old can be recovered from, as Halladay’s exceptional career since shows. Fighting back from a disappointing season when you are 36 is a much more difficult task. Halladay was clearly hampered by an injury to his right-shoulder and he has entered Spring Training with a revised training regime, adjusted pitching mechanics and a positive frame of mind.

Every player is in ‘the best shape of their life’ coming into Spring Training and it could be overly optimistic to consider 2012 as a mere bump in the road, but Halladay’s previous excellence means he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If the Phillies are to challenge the Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves in the NL East, they need ‘Doc’ to return to somewhere close to his previous form.

Jemile Weeks (Oakland A’s)

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Weeks came into the A’s Spring Training camp all set to become the leading face of the club. His impressive rookie campaign in 2011 had earned him an extremely rare compliment: the A’s General Manager Billy Beane described him as the one ‘untouchable’ asset on the roster that he wouldn’t consider trading.

In Oakland’s home season-opener against the Seattle Mariners, Weeks led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and the A’s TV commentators were quick to state that they expected big things of the second baseman in the season ahead.

Instead, Weeks played so poorly that he was demoted to Triple-A on 21 August and he was relegated to cheer-leading duty as Oakland secured a surprising AL West division title.

Weeks was defiant at the time of his demotion, stating: “at the end of the day, I’m going to be a star in this game, man. You’ve got to have your ups and downs. It just makes the story so much sweeter when you come back. I don’t want to expand too much on it, but you’re looking at a star, period”.

If Weeks is to live up to his own billing, he needs to have a big bounceback season in 2013. That includes simply winning a starting job during Spring Training.

Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)

In 2012, Lincecum played his part in helping the Giants to their second World Series title in three years. However, the two-time Cy Young Award winner’s role was to chip in with 4.2 innings of relief pitching during the Fall Classic having lost his place in the starting rotation after putting up a 5.37 ERA over 33 regular season starts.

Lincecum will be a free agent at the end of the coming season and if he is to earn a lucrative new contract he will need to show that his disappointing 2012, and the declining speed of his fastball, was just a blip.

He turned up to the Giants’ Spring Training camp with his trademark long hair cut short, either as a sign that he is smartening up his act or that he is trying a reverse-Samson approach to regain his powers.

Aroldis Chapman (Cincinnati Reds)

Lincecum was temporarily moved from starting to relief pitching for the 2012 playoffs and one of the biggest National League stories in Spring Training will be the Reds’ plan to take the opposite approach with their ‘Cuban missile’.

When Cincinnati won the race to Chapman’s signature in January 2010, their offer of a 6 year, $30.25m contract reflected the scouting reports that he could become a dominating starting pitcher. So far they have harnessed his blazing fastball/slider combination out of the bullpen to great effect and he took to the role of closer superbly last season, striking out a scarcely believable 122 batters in just 71.2 innings (15.3 K’s per 9 innings).

However, a quality starting pitcher that can give you 200 innings in a season, plus a potential dominant postseason start or two, is more valuable to a team than 70 innings as a closer and the Reds have decided now is the time to find out if Chapman has what it takes.

With Cincinnati all set to be in a tight NL Central battle with the St. Louis Cardinals, it will be interesting to see how much patience they have before deciding to move him back to the closer role.

Carl Crawford (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Here’s a question for you: will Crawford come into Spring Training this year happier than he did two years ago?

Back in 2011, he met his new Boston Red Sox teammates for the first time flush with a 7 year, $142m contract and full of excitement about what he hoped would be a successful new chapter in his career.  From the outside, everything was perfect, but there was a lingering doubt as to how Crawford would adapt to playing in the media hothouse of Boston compared to his days with the underdog Tampa Bay Rays.

The dream turned into a nightmare as a poor 2011 season was followed by an injury hit 2012. Crawford recently admitted to his feelings of desperation, stating: “I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me. I just didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. It puts you in kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out”.

Thankfully for Crawford – and for the Red Sox – the dollar-dispensing Dodgers provided an unlikely way out with their summertime mega-trade. The outfielder is still rehabbing from elbow surgery and may not be ready for Opening Day, but 2013 will offer Crawford a chance to get his career back on track.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: The King’s reign continues

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The endless taunts from Yankee fans could be brushed away at the time, but deep down they created a sense of hopelessness and dread.

The New York Yankees, or some other big-spending team, were going to snatch Felix Hernandez from the Seattle Mariners and there was nothing M’s fans could do about it.

They had lost their best players before (Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson etc) and, however much they tried to hold on to Felix’s proclaimed desire to stay, it was crushingly inevitable that Hernandez would follow.

But then on Thursday evening, suddenly everything changed. We found out that King Felix’s reign in Seattle will continue for years to come.

The news wasn’t quite as definitive as first appeared. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted that the Mariners were on the verge of agreeing a record seven-year, $175 million contract with their ace. That staggering headline sum was then reduced by later reports, such as from ESPN’s Buster Olney, to be a five-year, $135.5m contract extension (in practice it’s the same as Nightengale’s figure, with the other two years and $39.5m being what Hernandez has remaining on his current contract) and then ‘MLB sources’ clarified that an agreement actually hadn’t been reached just yet.

All of which was simply clarifying the precise details. The conclusion is the same: in the coming weeks Hernandez will sign a contract that ties him to Seattle for the next seven years and will pay him a little short of £111m, or just over £300k per week for the duration.

Away from the objective analysis, there is always something joyous in seeing a team retain their star player. Fans have become conditioned to expect their heroes to walk away, leaving them with mere memories and a desolate mix of rejection and betrayal. It’s an emotional and irrational viewpoint, but that’s part of what being a fan leads you to.

When Stan Musial passed away recently, much was made of him being a one-team man and his place in St. Louis Cardinal folklore partly as a result. Albert Pujols was held in the same regard by Cardinal fans until the Los Angeles Angels waved $240m in front of his eyes a year ago.

The comparisons between the two are as obvious as they are clearly unfair. No one knows for sure whether Musial would have ‘remained loyal’ to the Cardinals had free agency existed in his day and, frankly, when you stop and think rationally for a moment it’s difficult to doubt that Stan the Man would have made the same decision if placed in the same position.

Away from the emotion, the only way a team can keep a star player is to pay them somewhere close to what they are worth on the market, even if the player may be willing to accept a little less than the maximum available if that means staying somewhere he enjoys and where his family are settled.

In the case of Pujols, the Cardinals were not willing to come close to the Angels’ offer and so the two parted ways. St. Louis made a business decision and it was an entirely understandable one.

Are the Mariners making a similarly defensible decision in investing so much money in Hernandez? Giving a long-term contract to a pitcher comes with significant risk due to the potential of an injury to both make them miss a substantial amount of games and then not to be able to recapture their previous dominance.

Weighing up the risk is not an easy process. Hernandez has had a clean bill of health since making his Major League debut as a 19 year old in 2005. It says a lot about the precariousness of pitchers that such a positive attribute can lead to the pessimistic prognosis that the amount of innings he has therefore pitched (1620.1 in the Majors so far) may mean that an arm injury is, if not around the corner, coming along the next street. The Mariners know Hernandez’s condition better than anybody, so they are best-placed to make the call.

Seattle are not likely to challenge for a playoff spot in 2013, but every organization’s goal is to develop a winning team and to do that you need to have good players. There has been a theory over the past couple of seasons that the Mariners should trade Hernandez because of the current team’s lack of competitiveness. It’s one I didn’t subscribe to.

If you trade an established star, not simply a good Major Leaguer but one of the very best starting pitchers, you do so in the knowledge that the prospects acquired may never pan out (see Justin Smoak, who the Mariners insisted on receiving from the Texas Rangers when they traded Cliff Lee). You can still build a team of talented youngsters by trading other players (as the Mariners did last year with Michael Pineda) and making good selections in the amateur draft (as the Mariners have done with their three highly-touted pitching prospects Danny Hultzen, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker).

When you’ve got an elite player they should only be traded if a) you know you have no chance of keeping them for longer, b) you get completely bowled over by an offer you cannot refuse, or c) the player is in his early 30s and he’ll be well in decline before you are competitive again.

For all but the very poorest teams, paying one elite player $20m-25m shouldn’t tie the hands of the GM from putting together a competitive roster, especially with the new national TV contracts coming on stream. If the Mariners’ young pitchers, and hopefully a few hitters, develop then King Felix will be the perfect player to lead the way in a year or two. And if everything comes together out of nowhere – as with the Orioles and A’s in 2012 - in a year before that then the M’s will increase their chances of making the opportunity count by having an ace that no team would want to face in the playoffs.

From an objective point of view, and from the emotional fan’s perspective, Seattle’s decision to commit to their King makes complete sense.

Rounding the bases

It’s a blow to Venezuela and the World Baseball Classic, but King Felix’s decision to skip the event is entirely understandable considering his ongoing contract negotiations. Even though the idea that the WBC creates much of an increased injury risk has been debunked – players regularly complain about the current off-season/Spring Training regimen and it’s not as if it’s the product of rigorous, meticulous research – getting the contract sorted with no distractions has to be the priority.

One of the most obvious arguments against the WBC injury claim is that there is no cut-and-dried way to prevent injuries and they are simply a part of sport. The St. Louis Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter is the latest example of this truism and it looks like this latest setback will end the veteran’s career. It’s been a fine career too and his period with the Cardinals, after starting with the Blue Jays, had a strange symmetry.  His first three years with the team ended in a World Series triumph in 2006 and after missing virtually all of 2007 and 2008 through injury, he gave the Cards another three strong years that again culminated in a World Series victory in 2011.

Whilst the Mariners were set to invest in King Felix, the Houston Astros continued their crusade to field a ‘Major League’ team for as little money as possible by trading Jed Lowrie to the Oakland A’s. The Astros’ General Manger Jeff Luhnow is pursuing a much-needed rebuilding strategy, however MLB and the Players Association should be demanding answers as to what is happening with the revenue that the Astros will generate this year – and more pertinently the money they will receive through national TV contracts and other pooled resources – beyond what is spent on the projected $25m Major League payroll and the limited money they are allowed to invest in amateur talent drafts under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The protracted sale of the organization to a group led by Jim Crane was indicative of the doubts some MLB owners had about Crane’s business past and you would expect they will be pressing to have the Astros’ plans put under considerable scrutiny. Astros fans will be hoping the money is being set aside to fund future free-agent spending and to keep hold of some of the young talent they intend to develop over the next few seasons. Cynics will suspect that might not be the case and Crane’s recent claim that the Astros lost money over the last five years doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Spend, spend, spend

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Whether you’ve got it or you haven’t, most of us often have money on the mind.

The madness of last Thursday’s football transfer deadline put sport-team spending back in the headlines, especially the antics at Queens Park Rangers.

QPR may be languishing at the bottom of the Premier League, but they would be flying up the table if they got points simply for spending money (their actions suggest that they believe that’s the case). Their most eye-catching deal was to sign central defender Chris Samba for a £12.5m transfer fee plus a 4.5 year contract worth £100k per week. That amounts to an investment of the best part of £36m, or $57m.

What do you get for that sort of money in MLB, bearing in mind that there are no transfer fees (Japanese/Korean posting fees excepted)? Well, that’s practically the same money as the Cleveland Indians spent on a four-year contract with Nick Swisher this offseason.

If we looked at it on an average annual value basis (lumping together the transfer fee and wages) then Samba amounts to approximately $12.66m per year. That’s equivalent to the deal the Red Sox agreed this offseason with Shane Victorino ($13m per year for 3 years), or – looking back to the previous offseason – the $12.5m AAV obtained by Jonathan Papelbon as a free agent from the Phillies.

After looking up these details on the essential Cot’s Baseball Contracts site, my mind wandered to general team spending. Where we used to look towards the New York Yankees for dishing out cash like confetti, it’s now the Los Angeles Dodgers who stand out the most.

They have four players whose current contracts are worth more than $140m: Carl Crawford ($142m), Zack Greinke ($147m), Adrian Gonzalez ($154m) and Matt Kemp ($160m). The latter two have already played through one-year of their contracts, whilst Crawford has served out – ‘played’ wouldn’t be the accurate word to use in this case – two years of his. So the future commitment in the players isn’t quite as big as the headline figures suggest, but they represent a willingness to award and take on such significant contracts.

Clayton Kershaw will almost certainly become the fifth player in this category if, as expected, he agrees a lucrative contract extension with the Dodgers in the near future too.

Another way of looking at the extent of the Dodgers’ spending is with consideration of their top ten highest earners in 2013, again, courtesy of Cot’s:

Player 2013 salary ($) 2013 salary (£) £ per week
Adrian Gonzalez* $21,857,143

£13,783,176

£265,061
Carl Crawford* $20,857,143

£13,152,574

£252,934
Matt Kemp $20,250,000

£12,769,708

£245,571
Zack Greinke $19,000,000

£11,981,679

£230,417
Josh Beckett* $17,000,000

£10,720,264

£206,159
Hanley Ramirez $15,500,000

£9,774,358

£187,968
Ted Lilly $13,166,667

£8,303,135

£159,676
Andre Ethier $13,500,000

£8,513,341

£163,718
Chad Billingsley $11,000,000

£6,936,796

£133,400
Clayton Kershaw $11,000,000

£6,936,796

£133,400

*The Red Sox very graciously are chipping in nearly $7m to go towards the salaries of Gonzalez, Crawford and Beckett.

This all brings us on to the Dodgers’ recently-announced new television contract with Time Warner Cable that is going to bring in revenue on a colossal scale. The exact figures aren’t yet known, but the contract is for 25 years and estimated to be worth between $7bn-$8bn. One A’s blogger noted that if the contract is at the top end of that scale, the Dodgers could be raking in revenue in the region of $544m per year, combining their own TV network with the national TV rights, ticket sales and the rest.

And that’s what makes the Dodgers’ spending so remarkable: these salaries are completely affordable- I hesitate to use the word ‘sensible’, yet that also may be true – to the Dodgers from a business standpoint.

The same cannot be said for QPR and their loyal fans would be forgiven for seeing their situation as a billionaire’s toy as dangerously close to what led to the mess at Portsmouth FC.

One final thought that may provide some cheer, though. It’s worth bearing in mind that those are the top ten earners on the Dodgers’ current roster, but there’s another salary on the payroll that could be included. The Dodgers will pay Manny Ramirez $8.3m this year to sit about in retirement, two-and-a-half seasons after he left the club.

Coincidentally enough, that works out at just over £100k per week.

If QPR want point to something that makes paying Samba £100k per week look a little less mad, this might be their best option.

WBC on the way

We’re now just under a month away from the start of the 2013 World Baseball Classic. I’ve begun work on some resources in preparation for the tournament and in doing so learned that the weekend in the middle of the event will be an absolute baseball feast.

During this period there will be First Round games from Puerto Rico and Arizona taking place in the evening and early hours U.K. time, combined with Second Round games from Tokyo in the morning. This means that 15 WBC games will begin between 7.30 p.m. on Friday 8 March and 10 a.m. on Monday 11. You’d best cancel any other plans you had in the diary for that weekend!

So long Baseball Today

In amid the optimism of the new season approaching, there was extremely disappointing news this past week when ESPN announced that it had decided to call time on the Baseball Today podcast. The show was hosted by Eric Karabell ably assisted by regulars Keith Law, Dave Schoenfield and Mark Simon and was the only podcast I listened to on a regular basis. It covered baseball predominantly from a statistical, sabermetric viewpoint and did so in a way that was fun, thought-provoking and professional.

ESPN in their wisdom are replacing it with a Baseball Tonight podcast hosted by Buster Olney and whilst I suspect that it will be decent enough on its own, it will just be the same ESPN voices talking about the same news in the same way that you get on all the other ESPN programmes. The great appeal of Baseball Today was that it provided something different and ESPN’s baseball coverage will be much the poorer without it.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: From coast to coast

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The recent trade of Justin Upton from Arizona to Atlanta will impact the pennant races in the East and West divisions in the National League.

For Atlanta, the trade completes a wonderfully exciting outfield in which Justin Upton will join brother B.J. and Jason Heyward to form a dynamic trio that should delight the fans at Turner Field.

Centrefielder Michael Bourn led the Braves in 2012 with a brilliant season in his final year before free agency and his departure – destination still unknown – had the potential to leave a notable hole that Atlanta could ill afford considering the strength of division rivals, the Washington Nationals.

Losing Bourn could still have a negative effect on the team’s performance. He had a markedly better campaign than either of the Upton brothers in 2012, although Justin Upton was hampered by a thumb injury, while the retirement of Chipper Jones and the loss of Martin Prado – sent to Arizona as part of the Upton trade – could leave them light on leadership.

However the great potential of the Upton brothers is undoubted and the Braves will hope that pairing them together will bring out the very best in both. If so, there will be a fascinating sub-plot to the NL East division battle with the best of the Braves being compared to the nifty Nationals.

Washington will have new recruit Denard Span manning centrefield, with Bryce Harper following up on his excellent rookie season and Jayson Werth hoping to rebound from an injury riddled 2012.

Werth was signed to a seven-year contract in the 2010/11 offseason and whilst the deal always looked like an overpay, it was expected that the real cost would come near the end of the contract. Instead, Werth’s first two seasons in Washington have been a major disappointment. The 2013 season is the ideal time for him to provide the Nationals with the sort of performance that won him the multi-year deal.

Elsewhere in the NL East, the New York Mets are interested in signing Bourn but the prospect of losing their first-round draft pick currently appears to be a price too high when combined with the size of the contract Bourn is looking for and the fact that the Mets are very unlikely to be contenders in 2013 even with a new centrefielder.

As for the Phillies, their outfield looks distinctly underwhelming and General Manager Ruben Amaro – a man clearly not held in the highest of esteem by many on the web – has been ridiculed in some quarters for signing free agent Delmon Young to be the team’s right-fielder. The thought of the blundering Young regularly trotting out to right field will make you laugh or cry depending on whether you are a Phillies fan or not, although the meagre $750k investment in the former Detroit Tiger suggests that Amaro isn’t committed to Young being the answer all season either.

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ General Manager Kevin Towers will be all-too familiar with the dismissive comments flying Amaro’s way.

His decision to trade away a young star in Justin Upton has left many people scratching their heads. When combined with the decision to trade away pitcher Trevor Bauer, the explanation that Towers and manager Kirk Gibson are conducting a purge of players that don’t fit their favoured ‘gritty’ mould is too convenient to ignore, despite that protestations that this has been exaggerated (which may well be true to an extent).

Players that will scrap for every out are an important part of a winning clubhouse, but the best teams are those that can win games in different ways and that means possessing a roster containing players of different talents. Anyone can get their uniform dirty diving for lost causes and charging into the outfield fence. Few players, even among Major Leaguers, have the raw talent to make the game look effortlessly easy and to produce moments of magic.

What makes the Upton trade so baffling is that his ex-teammates are quick to point out that, whilst he may not outwardly show his passion, he is as hard-working and dedicated a professional as you could wish to meet.  For a team that wants to both win now and over the next few seasons, you’d be hard pushed to find a better player to have in your outfield.

It seems a strange move, but in fairness to Towers his busy offseason has still left the D-Backs with a competitive roster that has good pitching depth and some more-than-useful batting options. They don’t hold the honour of being the reigning World Series champions like the San Francisco Giants, nor do they have the media exposure of the free-spending Los Angeles Dodgers, but Arizona should not be overlooked as a genuine play-off contender this coming season.

Rounding the bases

Francisco Liriano went into the festive season with a two-year, $12.75m contract agreed with the Pittsburgh Pirates only to take a tumble and break his right arm. Thankfully for him, the Pirates did not walk away and instead agreed a restructured contract that takes into account him potentially missing part of the 2013 season. When healthy, Liriano figures to be in the rotation alongside A.J. Burnett, Wandy Rodriguez, James McDonald and Jeff Karstens, with star pitching prospects Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon waiting in the wings.

Staying in the NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers will have to make do without Corey Hart until the end of May at the earliest after he underwent knee surgery this past week.  Mat Gamel will get another chance to grab hold of the first-base job after his presumed succession to Prince Fielder fell apart last year due to his own knee injury.

Former Brewer Shaun Marcum has agreed a one-year contract with the New York Mets. Milwaukee acquired Marcum in a trade over the 2010/11 offseason along with Zack Greinke in an effort to finally provide some pitching to go alongside their talented batting lineup. The deals took them to the 2011 NLCS, however they are now back in the same situation they found themselves in at the end of the 2010 season, with a rotation of Yovani Gallardo followed by question marks.

The headline gave a stark message: “Alex Rodriguez could miss the entire 2013 season”.  As soon as you got into the story, though, it was clear there was a very strong emphasis on the word “could”. Yankees GM Brian Cashman has noted that it’s a possibility they could be without their third baseman all season, but the expectation is still that Rodriguez will return sometime in July.  The real question for the Yankees is what level of performance they can expect from him once he does return? The one thing we do know is that it will not be worth anywhere remotely close to the $28m (£17.7m, or just under £341k per week) they will be paying him.