State of the Sports World I

Try as I might, nothing really grabs my attention at the moment in the Sports World. The Yankees are getting hammered by the Angels, Pre-Season football approaches its third week, I start school again soon. Heres whats going on in my realm of sports:

MLB:

Yankees: Its Crunch time for them, and as always, they’re getting beat by the Angels. Arggh. Seattle is playing very well and they need to start losing. Arggh. Boston is playing Tampa Bay. Arrghh

Brewers: I follow them casually and watch a game of theirs every now and then. I jumped on their bandwagon this year because its the first time they’ve mattered in a quarter-decade. They’ve been playing pretty terribly in August, but have won their last two games.

*Side note: I’ve been spending some time playing as the Devil Rays in MVP ‘05 (with updates rosters and portraits) and Baseball Mogul. The D-Rays have a TON of talent and my team is young and lethally talented. Good times. To bad they’re awful right now.

NFL:

Browns: Crennel continues to make terrible decisions about the quarterback situation. Can I hope for a midseason firing? Please? Brady Quinn is going to be the major story for the team this year.

Redskins: Campbell going down terrified me. Yikes. That could’ve been Palmer bad.

*Note: I’m not very into the preseason. Its wayyyyyyy to long and theres wayyyy to much garbage time in it. Why do I want to watch third and fourth string players? Its NFLE (RIP) quality play. It frustrates me to no end to see players go down in preseason.

NBA:

Cavaliers: Yes, indeed! I do follow the NBA. Not a lot of action from the Cavaliers. To many bad contracts and poor players going around.

NCAA Football:

I don’t have a team I like in college football. Its a lot of fun to watch, and I’m more into individual players due to my large interest in the NFL Draft.

NHL:

?????: I used to follow the NHL, but I lost interest after the lockout. I hope to follow it more this next season. Also, can they please make a new NHL Hitz? Hitz 2002 was one of the best sports game ever made.

MLB Draft Signing Deadline

All first rounders were signed.

Obviously a lot is expected to happen between and midnight tomorrow. There have been rumors about Porcello and Dominguez agreeing to deals, but they aren’t confirmed yet. What happens if a deal isn’t reached? The unsigned player either goes to college or goes to a JUCO for a year then re-enters. As a result result, drafted players have a good deal of bargaining power. They can demand a large bonus and if the team that drafts them won’t pay it, then they just go to college or wait another year. Players that announce their high bonus desires prior to the draft slide as a result. Porcello was a top 3 talent in the draft, but wanted a large signing bonus, and as a result, fell to the Tigers at 27. Falling down to #27 wasn’t a bad thing at all – he can still get more money than players drafted before him. If that happened in the NFL Draft, a la Brady Quinn, its entirely different.Further complicating things are the slot bonuses that MLB recommends. These slot bonuses are suggestions and suggestions only. However, MLB does not like it at all when teams pay over slot. The Yankees and Tigers are two teams that pay over slot, and this gives them a big advantage in signing their drafted talent. They don’t care if MLB gets mad at them either – they’re willing to pay young talent a lot of money. Both teams have seen this pay off. In the case of the Yankees you have Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy. The Tigers have Andrew Miller and Justin Verlander.

This doesn’t bode well for teams that are at the top of the draft, yet have to pass on high end talent due to signability. In the NFL and NBA, the worst teams get the best players because signability isn’t an issue. The NFL has a hard cap and the NBA has a good rookie contract system. Baseball has neither. The MLB Amateur is a weird little mess. Basically, you have agents and players demanding more money than MLB wants them to, and MLB is powerless to do anything about it. It doesn’t matter where a player gets drafted, he can still get more money than players picked before him if he finds the right team. MLB gets upset when teams pay over slot, but theres nothing they can do about it. Making this even more flawed is the ability of teams to sign international players, and give them however much money they want.

I don’t know how to fix the MLB Draft, and I’m not sure it ever will. The system right now is very beneficial to amateurs as they hold all the power. I’m always fascinated by drafts for sports, and the MLB is unique compared to that of other leagues. How I wish I was good at baseball in high school….

Lessons learned from the 2007 Yankees…

After Eric Gagne blew another game for the Red Sox today, the Yankees are now 4 games back and playing like a juggernaut. This is interesting because just a few months ago, the team was being carried by A-Rod, suffering from a poor bullpen, and 14.5 games out of first. How things can change.

I’ll admit, there were a couple of times this year when I felt like the team just wasn’t going to be worth following anymore. A 4-1 loss to the Devil Rays. Losing a series badly with the Blue Jays. Making it harder was the fact that Boston was playing so well. 10 games back. 12 games back. 14.5 games back. I was already looking ahead to 2008. How can anyone come back from that?

Still, I tuned in every night on mlb.tv. Even with low expectations I followed the team, it was far to early to quit. Ever since the All-Star break, the team has been on a tear. While they have certainly benefited from playing poor teams like the D-Rays and Royals, they pretty much gotten the better of everyone else, including finishing a sweep of the Indians today. It just goes to show that the baseball season truly is a marathon. Being in first in May is worthless. While poor play can be discouraging early on, the right time to abandon ship is July 31ist at 3:00 pm EST. What if the season was going the other way around for the Yankees – a great start followed by poor play? It would be hard to get excited about a team that was a sinking ship before the playoffs, although being hot or cold doesn’t mean very much once you get into the playoffs.

As for the postseason, I’m not to optimistic. I still remember last year. Its going to be a tough fight just to get in this year too – Seattle is playing well although the Indians and Tigers aren’t. Winning the division is still a bit of a reach. Even then, the playoffs are a crap shoot. Either way, its very nice to see the team rebound from a poor start. They didn’t give up. Neither did the ‘05 Redskins who were 5-6 and finished 10-6 and won a playoff game. The ‘04 Red Sox didn’t either. Did I just write that?

Bonds….again

Well, Bonds just hit #756 against Mike Bacsik, who will now be forever immortalized. I tried not to get to caught up in the moment, and I still feel pretty apathetic. It was neat to see him hit it, but the situation is still awkward for me. I mean, the announcers on my TV station (MASN), kept saying how “theres people out there in America who don’t approve!”, or “Hank Aaron is still the home run king to some people!” What lame to things to say.

More interesting to me is how Barry has completely overshadowed how bad that Giants team is. Hes literally been more important than whether the Giants have won or lost games. What will ESPN, a joke of a sports channel do with itself now? Where will they send Pedro Gomez? Will Barry play next season?

Let Barry have his moment tonight, and if you want to rip into him, do it tomorrow. For now, I think Barry deserves a pat on the back for being the all-time, home run king.

Apathy and Barry Bonds

Any day now, Barry Bonds is going to hit home run #756 and break Hank Aaron’s record. This has generated a HUGE amount of publicity, namely from ESPN. The funny thing is, I don’t care.

Well thats because you hate Barry Bonds!

No, I don’t. I’ve been ruined by all the disgusting hype from ESPN, as well as the awkwardness of the situation. People in San Francisco want him to break the record and everywhere else he gets boo’d. Bud Selig couldn’t have handled the whole situation any more awkwardly either. Do I think he did steroids? Yes, its pretty obvious. Its stupid to say, “SHOW ME THE PROOF THAT HE DID!”, as well. His steroid use used to upset me, but now, its just gravy. It is what it is. Either way, his name is going to be #1 on the all time home run list.

Why don’t you care about his steroid use?

At first it upset me, namely 3-4 years ago. How dare he cheat!!! Now, I’ve just accepted it – its the world I live in. Much, much worse things have happened and will happen. Steroids aside, hes still an amazing baseball player. It doesn’t even bother me that a player that I think did steroids holds the home run record. Thats just life.

Is he better than Ruth?

I’ve thought about it a lot, and well, I don’t know. Ruth’s career OPS is higher, yet Bonds had the four greatest seasons in baseball history. Ruth played in an un-integrated era, while Bonds played in the “Steroid Era.” Ruth had all the intangibles one could ever want, while Bonds is despised by many. If Bonds played in Ruth’s day and suffered the knee injury he did, he would have been forced to retire because they didn’t have a means of treating it back then. Theres just to many factors. For me, its tough for me to compare players from different eras, even with stats like EqA. Adjusted for all time, Ruth has a higher EqA but trails in most other stats (WARP2, WARP3, EqR, BRAA, BRAR, and so forth..) due to less games played. Do you value superior efficiency or longer lasting production? I’d take longer last production but Ruth’s AB/HR ratio and production in his career are impossible to ignore.

I’m pointing a gun to your head, pick one!

FINE! I’d take “steroid” Bonds (2001 to present). He was a different player (stolen base fiend and great defense) before his knee surgeries and home run surge so I view his career in halves. His seasons from 2001 to 2004 were the best in the history of baseball. 2004 saw an OPS of 1,400+ and an EqA of .457! Thats insane. By no means am I a Bonds fan or anything. My point is that I think its dumb to say one is definitively better the other. Either way, I can’t wait until this whole thing is old news in about two years so I don’t have to hear about it anymore.

There you have it. The foremost record in baseball is going to be broken, and I don’t care. Bonds deserves credit for what hes done regardless of your take on his career. Hes one of the two best players of all time. Of course, this is all moot because we know A-Rod is going to hit 800 home runs in 2015.