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Collusion Cloud Looming?

April 7, 2010 by William Juliano

According to AP, the MLBPA is investigating the possibility that baseball’s owners colluded to keep salaries down over the off season.

”We have concerns about the operation of the post-2009 free agent market,” new union head Michael Weiner said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ”We have been investigating that market. Our investigation is far along but not yet complete.”

The MLBPA and baseball owners have butted heads over collusion in the past. Could we be headed toward another skirmish?

Is it possible that major league owners would make the same catastrophic mistakes that they made in the 1980s?  For those unfamiliar with the history, MLB owners were found guilty by an arbiter of having colluded on three separate occasions during the 1980s. As a result of the rulings, on November 4, 1990, MLB owners agreed to pay the MLBPA a sum of $280 million plus interest and distribution costs. The total cost, which took 14 years to be paid in full, amounted to over $430 million. It should also be noted that on October 24, 2006, MLB was once again forced to settle $12 million in collusion damages as part of the CBA ratification process.

Earlier in the day, I had a running dialogue with Tom Tango (of Tangotiger fame) over at his very informative www.insidethebook.com. Tango couldn’t get past the idea that the market reacted efficiently according to his projections. Unfortunately, not every MLB owner and GM thinks as rationally and scientifically as Tango. To suggest that a majority of the 30 teams similarly evaluate both past and future performance, and then similarly translate that performance into dollar values, seems a bit farfetched to me.

It remains to be seen whether the MLBPA will actually file a grievance, but if they do, it would be foolish to assume that they do not have a strong case. After all, the grievances of the 1980s were all centered on circumstantial evidence, so it’s not like a smoking gun is needed. If the MLBPA can uncover any evidence of conspiracy, or make a strong circumstantial case involving a pattern of signings, then MLB owners could find themselves considerably lighter in their pockets.

Posted in Baseball History, MLB | Leave a Comment »

What A Relief…Or, I Am Joba Hear Me Roar!

April 6, 2010 by William Juliano

  • Defense was the early theme as the Yankees allowed Jacoby Ellsbury to reach base on a fairly routine pop up. It looked like Marcus Thames should have made the play, which plays to his reputation. Thames is a solid righty bat against lefties, but he doesn’t do that well enough to justify defense like he put forth tonight.
  • Jorge Posada’s defense was questionable again today. He was charged with a throwing error in the first when his attempt to nab Ellsbury bounced into center field. In the next inning, he bounced another throw to second base on Adrian Beltre’s stolen base. It looked like a decent throw would have nabbed Beltre.
  • Even though he gave up 4 runs in only 5 innings, AJ Burnett pitched decently. The first run was really the result of poor defense, so his outing wasn’t far from a “quality start”. More importantly, it looked like he and Posada worked relatively well together. There was only one mound conference at a key moment (against Ortiz in the 5th), and it seemed like AJ worked more quickly than normal. The only nitpick is it seemed like Posada was late to rely on AJ’s breaking pitch, but dedicated himself to it with the go ahead run on second base in the fifth.
  • AJ Burnett’s much heralded change-up was a no show in this game. By most accounts, he only threw one all game (to JD Drew in the 2nd innning).
  • The stabilizing factor in this game was Alfredo Aceves. With the two teams playing see saw, Aceves’ aggressive strike throwing gave the Yankees the time they needed to reclaim the lead. Hopefully, Girardi continues to use Aceves in the role of long relief specialist in high leverage situations.
  • Even though it worked out, I think Girardi erred with his bullpen usage in the 8th inning. Aceves had been rolling along, so he should have at least been left in to face Kevin Youkilis. By going to David Robertson to start the inning, Girardi was forced to burn an effective reliever without recording an out. He also then placed the game in the hands of a reliever (Marte) who struggled with health and command in the spring. It worked out, but the Yankees may not be so fortunate next time around.
  • Which leads us to Joba. He wasn’t quite vintage 2007 Joba, but he was pretty close. He effectively used his slider to set up a mid-90s fastball in striking out Beltre, and then did the reverse to put Drew away. Many may not like the Joba roar that came after the final strike out, but he can moonwalk off the mound if he keeps pitching like that. In the meantime, I think the performance will go along way toward improving both Joba’s confidence as well as Girardi’s faith in him. After the game, Jorge Posada made his feeling about the great Joba debate loud and clear. “I just love him in the bullpen,” Posada stated. A few more outings like tonight and I might be forced to agree with him.
Joba used a mid-90s fastball and sharp slider to slam the door in the 8th.

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Posted in Game Recap, MLB, Yankees | 1 Comment »

Game 2: Yankees vs. Red Sox

April 6, 2010 by William Juliano

The Yankees and Red Sox are back in action, this time with Jon Lester facing AJ Burnett. The current Red Sox lineup has had considerable success against Burnett, fueled in large part by AJ’s 8.85 ERA against Boston last season. Meanwhile, the Yankees will have to lean on the Captain and Arod because the rest of the lineup has struggled against the Red Sox lefty. The pitching matchup seems to favor Boston, but this rivalry always manages to surprise.

vs. Jon Lester PA BA OBP SLG HR RBI
Derek Jeter SS 26 0.375 0.423 0.375 0 2
Nick Johnson DH 3 0.000 0.000 0.000 0 0
Mark Teixeira 1B 14 0.286 0.286 0.500 1 1
Alex Rodriguez 3B 17 0.250 0.294 0.688 2 4
Robinson Cano 2B 22 0.227 0.227 0.318 0 1
Jorge Posada C 14 0.231 0.286 0.231 0 0
Nick Swisher RF 20 0.133 0.300 0.400 1 2
Marcus Thames LF 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0 0
Curtis GrandersonCF 0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0 0
Total 116 0.252 0.302 0.402 4 10
             
vs. A.J. Burnett PA BA OBP SLG HR RBI
Jacoby Ellsbury LF 25 0.261 0.292 0.391 1 1
Dustin Pedroia 2B 34 0.28 0.471 0.520 2 4
Victor Martinez C 23 0.235 0.435 0.294 0 0
Kevin Youkilis 1B 32 0.259 0.375 0.370 1 5
David Ortiz DH 34 0.273 0.294 0.667 3 8
Adrian Beltre 3B 28 0.231 0.286 0.500 1 5
JD Drew RF 31 0.269 0.387 0.385 0 4
Mike Cameron CF 13 0.364 0.385 0.909 1 4
Marco Scutaro 2B 21 0.316 0.381 0.368 0 0
Total 241 0.271 0.357 0.478 9 31

Key Storylines

  • Curtis Granderson will be facing Jon Lester for the first time in his career (Lester has only started one career game against the Tigers). This will be a big test for Granderson, who has historically struggled against lefties.
  • Jorge Posada will be catching AJ Burnett as the duo hopes to start the 2010 season on the right foot.
  • After working on the pitch all spring, AJ Burnett unveils his newly developed changeup. It will be interesting to see when and how often he throws it.
  • Marcus Thames gets his first start of the year. His main role on the team is to hit lefty pitching, so a good performance could help cement his standing on the team.

Posted in Game Recap, Yankees | Leave a Comment »

Stop Whining…

April 6, 2010 by William Juliano

That was the message sent by Yankees President Randy Levine to Brewers Owner Mark Attanasio in an interview with ESPNNewYork.com.

“We play by all the rules and there doesn’t seem to be any complaints when teams such as the Brewers receive hundreds of millions of dollars that they get from us in revenue sharing the last few years. Take some of that money that you get from us and use that to sign your players.

“The question that should be asked is: Where has the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue sharing gone?”

I’ll take Randy Levine’s question one step further. Why is Attanasio complaining about the Yankees when he doesn’t even have to face them until the World Series? Shouldn’t he be more concerned about the Cardinals and their $93 million payroll first? Does he think he needs to spend more than $83 million in order to be competitive in the NL Central, and if so, why doesn’t he spend some of that $12 million in operating profit that the team made last year (and that’s before you factor in the fancy accounting tricks for which baseball owners have become famous)?

Posted in MLB, Yankees | Leave a Comment »

Baseball Is Still The National Pastime

April 6, 2010 by William Juliano

Traditions abound on Opening Day, but one unfortunate reoccurring part of the festivities seems to be at least one inane and misinformed article touting the demise of baseball as the national pastime. I am convinced that the same article gets passed around each year so a new author can add a few extra distortions and inaccuracies. The latest example comes to us from John R. Miller, a visiting scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, who penned this year’s version of the same old tired piece for the Wall Street Journal. Let’s take a look at his effort and see if we can’t add a little common sense.

Jacques Barzun, the French-born, American cultural historian, once wrote that “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.” Today Mr. Barzun would have to refer his foreign readers to professional football or even automobile racing, both of which trump baseball in television ratings.

Sadly, this logic isn’t what you’d expect from a scholar, especially one who purports to be a baseball fan. The NFL and NASCAR are both event driven sports. The number of televised contests are limited (and usually conveniently scheduled on Sundays). Baseball, however, has each team playing 162 games. As a result, it isn’t event-driven, but local-driven. Yankee fans watch the Yankees. Mariner fans watch the Mariners. And so on. Comparing the ratings of these sports is absurd. With so many more games at one’s disposal, the imperative to watch a game of the week is lost. If baseball only played games on Sundays and Mondays, I’m sure its regular season ratings would compete with football’s. Finally, it isn’t fair to compare the World Series to the Super Bowl because the later is viewed as more than a sporting event. In a sense, the Super Bowl is a reality show, with viewers tuning in to watch the commercials, see if their “box” wins or just provide background noise for a party. In my experience, when people gather to watch the World Series, the focus is almost undividedly on the actual game (of which there can be up to 7, as opposed to just one).

Major League owners like to boast that attendance at their games, except for the recent recession, has increased. But with the disappearance of hundreds of minor league and semi-pro teams—and thousands of teams in almost every town, factory, prison and military post across the land—interest in baseball and attendance has plummeted overall. Soccer has superseded baseball in suburban parks, and basketball has replaced stickball in the cities.

Major league owners like to boast about attendance because it has been extraordinary, even in spite of the recession and the two New York ballparks scaling back about 15,000 total seats per game. The notion that this attendance is being fueled by the obliteration of the minor leagues is not only absurd, but just plain wrong. According to MiLB.com, the number of minor leagues and teams has varied overtime, but the general attendance trend as been on the rise. For example, MiLB set its all-time attendance mark in 2008 by drawing over 43,000,000 fans, topping the previous mark of 39,640,443 when there were 488 teams. Now, I can’t speak for the decline in prison game attendance, but both minor and major league baseball are doing incredibly well at the gate. Unfortunately, a reliance on similar incorrect anecdotal evidence seems to be the pillar of Miller’s argument.

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Posted in MLB | 3 Comments »

Presidential Pitching

April 5, 2010 by William Juliano

William H. Taft becomes the first president to throw out a ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day.

This afternoon, President Barrack Obama extended a 100-year presidential tradition by throwing out a ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day. Dressed in a Nationals jacket and White Sox cap, the left-handed President Obama stepped atop the mound and lobbed a soft toss that would have been high and outside to a right-handed batter (see video after the jump). After delegating the honor to Vice President Biden last year, President Obama picked up a presidential baton that dates back to the administration of William Taft.

The very first presidential ceremonial pitch was thrown by President William Taft on Opening Day, April 14, 1910. In fact, the ambidextrous Taft threw out two pitches, one with each arm. Obviously, President Taft didn’t want to be accused of leaning left or right. The hefty Taft also didn’t take the pitcher’s mound to deliver the pitch. Instead, he hurled the pitch from his field side seat, a tradition that would remain prevalent for most of the 20th century, into the waiting glove of Senators’ legendary pitcher Walter Johnson. The shy Johnson at first begged off the honor, but eventually acquiesced. In fact, according to press accounts, he was hand picked by the president, who eventually returned the ball to the Big Train with the following inscription:

For Walter Johnson. with the hope that he may continue to be as formidable as in yesterday’s game.  – William H. Taft

President Taft needn’t have worried. Although the Senators would finish in the second division again, Johnson, who was just starting to embark on perhaps the greatest pitching career in the history of the game, would go on to have a stellar season.

Baseball wasn’t a novelty to William Taft. He was an avid fan of the game and attended many during his presidency (14 in total). He also became the first President to attend a game outside of Washington, attending games in Pittsburgh and later Chicago during the 1909 season. President Taft was such a baseball fan that after leaving office, he was strongly pursued to fill the office of a one-man baseball commissioner after the 1918 season. At the time, baseball was ruled by a three-man tribunal system that had stirred up considerable controversy, not the least of which involved player-owner relations. Who knows, had President Taft taken the consolidated position as sole baseball executive, perhaps the Black Sox scandal could have been averted?

In many regards, President Taft’s first pitch put the presidential seal of approval on baseball’s status as the American pastime. Even though baseball teams had been invited to the White House as far back as the Andrew Johnson administration, and Benjamin Harrison had become the first president to attend a game back in 1892, Washington Senators’ owner Clark Griffith had actively sought the presidential stamp for years before Taft. Grover Cleveland famously turned down a first pitch invite out of fear of being portrayed as a slacker, while William McKinley accepted an invitation, but simply never bothered to show up.

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Posted in Baseball History, MLB | 6 Comments »

Tragedy Strikes The Johns Again

April 5, 2010 by William Juliano

Tommy John pitched for the Yankees in all or parts of seven season. He is the last Yankee to win 20 games in back-to-back seasons (1979 and 1980).

Tommy John is a borderline Hall of Fame pitcher, but mention his name and undoubtedly what will pop into most baseball fans’ minds is the surgery that now bears his name. Unlike Lou Gehrig, John has not been able to overcome the shadow of his medical-related namesake. Then again, that’s probably how it should be. After all, when Dr. Frank Jobe experimented on his left elbow on September 25, 1974, he not only added 164 victories to John’s career record, but probably added hundreds more to various pitchers throughout the game.

Sadly, the reason Tommy John is on my mind is not because of his Yankee career, nor the many career saving surgeries done in his name, but because of the untimely passing of his youngest son, Taylor Simmons John, who died on March 9, 2010. I happened to be at Steinbrenner Field and was saddened to hear the news when a moment of silence was announced before an exhibition game against the Orioles. Since then, however, I haven’t seen a single mention of this tragic event.

Unfortunately, Tommy John has been no stranger to tragedy. In 1981, just after the end of the strike and 7 shutout innings in his first game back, John’s other son, Travis, then two years old, fell from a third-floor window at the family’s New Jersey home. Travis plunged almost 40 feet. The impact was so severe that the young boy swallowed his tongue and then lapsed into a coma. He wouldn’t emerge from that coma until nearly three weeks later. Once again, the Johns were at the mercy of another miracle doctor, this time Dr. Fred Epstein, who would later serve as director of NYU medical center.

Thankfully, Travis made a full recovery and walked out of the hospital on September 13. The next day, his dad recorded a complete game shutout against Milwaukee.

Tommy John was traded from the Yankees in the middle of the 1982 season, but returned to the Bronx for the last four years of his career. Always fondly remembered by Yankee fans, the John family has also fondly remembered New York for the support and prayers offered during their time of need.

Tommy with his wife Sally and son Taylor during an ALS fundraiser in 2005.

Taylor John was a teachers’ assistant in Lake Forest, Illinois as well as an accomplished Broadway singer. He was also a regular singing the national anthem in ballparks around the country. According to press accounts in his hometown, he died as the result of a seizure and heart failure because of an overdose of prescription drugs. 

It would be nice if the Yankees hold another moment of silence on Opening Day, and even nicer if they invited Tommy John to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Almost 30 years ago, Yankee fans were able to console the John family during a difficult time. It would nice if they had the chance do the same once again.

Posted in MLB, Yankees | 11 Comments »

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