The Weak In Rock

Ok, I cannot help myself.  I have to pile on with everyone else who is guffawing at Barry Zito’s recent demotion to the bullpen by the Giants.  I make no secret of this, I loathe the SF Giants.  There are worse teams in Major League Baseball, but I’d wager there are no worse run teams that have the sort of resources at their disposal that the Giants have.  Case in point - Zito.

The Giants are now, at least temporarily, paying $18 million a year for a mediocre long reliever.  They’re saying they’ve moved Zito to the bullpen so that he can work out his mechanics and return to the rotation.  Thing is, there’s nothing wrong with Zito’s mechanics.  His dramatic 12 to 6 curve ball just isn’t being called for strikes by the umps, and without that curve Zito is left to rely on a feeble fastball, a bush-league slider and a pretty impressive change-up to make it through an opponent’s line-up.  If you’re a big league hitter and you see that the umps aren’t going to give him the curve (traditionally Zito’s out pitch) for a strike then you can sit fastball and tattoo it when he serves it up for you.

The irony here is that Tim Lincecum, is currently sporting one of the best ERA’s in the National League, has won 4 games (that’s doubly impressive when you consider the tepid hitters, and mediocre defensive players the Giants are fielding this season) and is doing it all for a little more than 1/10th what Zito is getting paid.

The Giants signed Zito because their front office apparently does not understand baseball fans at all.  They signed Zito to try to balance out the impending loss in star power they knew they were going to suffer when Barry Bonds left for free agency.  The trouble with that theory of running a baseball team is that while Barry Bonds may have had sufficient star power and draw to distract fans from the poor performance of the team, Zito was never going to be close to that, and what really matters to any sports fan isn’t the names printed on the jerseys, it’s winning.

We invest our egos in our favorite teams.  When they lose we feel like losers.  When they win we take credit and carry that around as if we’d done more than just scarf down hot dogs and drink beer.  The Giants have two very talented home grown pitchers, Matt Cain and the aforementioned Lincecum.  It stands to reason that there’s other talent in the Giants organization, or at the very least that their scouts know where to find young, inexpensive talent.  This is one of the biggest reasons I hate the Giants.  They consistently rely on overpriced, under-performing veterans to flesh out their roster.  That’s a questionable move with hitters/fielders.  It’s brain-dead with pitchers.  It’s likely that Zito’s curve doesn’t cross the plate anymore because he no longer has the strength or flexibility to throw it with the proper bite.  Mechanical tweaking isn’t going to fix that.

Technorati Tags: Barry Zito, SF Giants, Major League Baseball, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain

Well, they did it again.  It was something of a given that the Red Sox were going to win the World Series again this year, but why, oh, why did they have to do it with another sweep.  Red Sox fans are annoying and arrogant enough as it is.  They do not need the encouragement provided by their team not simply winning their second World Series in three years, but by winning their second via a sweep in such a short amount of time.

Still, it’s rather amusing that in a roundabout way the Yankees upstaged this Red Sox victory when it was announced during the 7th inning of the game last night that Alex Rodriguez had opted out of the remainder of his contract with the Yankees.  The happiest people on earth to hear that news will be the folks in the front office of the Texas Rangers, who were just let off the hook for $21 million dollars that they would have had to pay to the Yankees if A-Rod had stayed with them for the remainder of the contract.  Second happiest, unfortunately, are the folks in the front office of the Boston Red Sox who are, no doubt, already negotiating with Scott Boras, A-Rod’s agent, to bring him to Boston.

Technorati Tags: Red Sox, sweep, Yankees, Alex Rodriguez, Texas Rangers, Scott Boras

Barry Bonds hit 756 last night and I literally couldn’t stand to watch it. I was out of the room when it happened and Ryan came running in, very excitedly to tell me. I came out into the living room and saw Barry jog around 3rd and make it to home with all the fireworks and streamers falling all over the ballpark, and it honestly just gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.

I honestly and truly do not care about use of performance enhancing drugs. I’ve said “so what” to that argument so many times I’m tired of hearing myself say it. Granted, Bonds is a talented hitter with better hand/eye coordination than anyone I’ve ever seen play the game, but he’s still a jackass. I find it impossible to root for him and I found the spectacle the Giants staged surrounding that home run hit beyond excessive. I guess Peter McGowan wanted to make sure the fans got their money’s worth out of seeing what is ultimately not a very interesting or remarkable thing - a ball hit into the stands at a professional baseball game.

You might disagree with me, but folks Marco Scutaro hit a grand slam the other day for the A’s against Texas. Scutaro wasn’t even signed by the A’s to be an everyday player (although he pretty much has been the past three years because the A’s infielders have been so damned injury-prone). Marco seems like a nice guy, and he certainly seems like a hard working ball player who takes his job seriously, but I guarantee you that the elite pitchers in the majors do not fear his bat.

What it comes down to is this - forget steroids and conspiracy theories about juiced baseballs - home runs are easier to come by in the current era of baseball for two big reasons:

1. There are too many teams and too many jobs for starting and relief pitchers.
2. Major League Baseball markets the long ball to death.

On the first point, there are 30 big league clubs now. Up until the mid-1960s there were 16 teams. Also, in the current era of baseball the 5 man starting rotation has been adopted by everyone. Let’s not even get into the craziness that is specialized relievers and closers. Back in the 16 team era the standard rotation was 3 guys, with a handful of relievers in the mix, none of them specialists. If you confine yourself to just the starters, in the old days there were jobs for 48 starting pitchers in the big leagues. To get one of those jobs you had to be damned good. Even feeble teams like the old Washington Senators had impressive starters who could outwit most batters for 6 or 7 innings. Today there are more than 3 times that number of starting pitchers. But the available talent pool is really no deeper than it ever was. In fact, considering the declining popularity of professional baseball and the fact that there are no full-ride scholarships for college baseball (compared to hundreds available for football and basketball players), the depth of talent for young pitchers today compared to the number of jobs available in the bigs is darned shallow.

Now, you can argue that the talent pool is deeper today because of all the international players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico and Japan, but I say bah and feh unto that. Other than guys who have come over from playing in the Japanese majors or the occasional Cuban defector, these guys haven’t really altered the pitching landscape much at all. Sure, you’ve got Pedro Martinez in there, but the vast majority of pitchers from the DR are undisciplined guys who throw smoke until their arms rapidly go to shit. And the Japanese players aren’t available until they reach the halfway point in their pro careers in Japan, so what we typically see is someone like a Hideo Nomo who is brilliant for a year or two and then goes to crap. The main thing the Central and South American pitchers contribute is keeping pitchers’ salaries low, because they’ll sign for much less than a comparable American prospect.

What I’m getting at is that Bonds has broken this record (and his record will not stand long) because it’s an eminently attainable record in today’s game. Sure, performance enhancing drugs have probably allowed Barry to play longer than his body would have naturally, but as my mother says, “steroids don’t hit the baseball for you.” He’s got talent and no one can or should deny that. But up against an equally gifted pitcher every day he’s not going to get anywhere near 756 home runs. After all, Greg Maddux made Barry look foolish this past Friday, sending him to the showers 0 for 4, and Maddux is far from the peak of his talents.

Barry got HR 756 off of Mike Bacsik, whose record for the Nationals this season is 5 wins and 6 loses out of 15 starts. His ERA is 4.47 this season and in his six years in and out of the big leagues he’s been bounced between 4 different teams, ending up this season with the Nationals, a club that seems to be fine with putting anyone with a pulse on the mound. Unless the number of teams is dramatically reduced or there is some sort of magical influx of gifted starters that comes into the game not only will Bonds’ new record not stand (something he understands himself and has publicly spoken about) but it will likely be broken in a few short years by Alex Rodriguez, who set his own record a few days ago as the fastest to 500 home runs, largely because he too faces more mediocre and downright lousy pitchers than good ones in any given season.

Ultimately I couldn’t watch the post-record spectacle because the whole thing is witless hyperbole. In an era when players can play well beyond the age when they would have been expected to retire a generation ago (for whatever reason) and where the overall talent of the pitchers is questionable at best hitting home runs just is not very special. It’s not a record that makes me want to cheer. So that I saw so little of the event last night doesn’t bother me a bit. In contrast I’m genuinely bummed that I missed seeing Tom Glavine get his 300th win. Glavine’s record is utterly unlike the home run record. If baseball doesn’t change dramatically these home run records are going to fall repeatedly during the next decade or two, while in contrast the same things that make home run records progressively less special make getting to 300 wins as a starting pitcher even more rare and impressive.

With the 5 man rotation and piles of relievers on every bench in MLB it’s going to be pretty much impossible for anyone to make it to 300 wins in a career. Your average starter just does not start enough games (or get deep enough into them to get credited with a win) nowadays. Glavine may be one of the last people to ever reach this plateau.  Baseball fans seem to understand that.  National TV ratings for Glavine’s 300th win were better than ratings for the game in which Bonds tied Aaron’s record.  Baseball fans know the difference between rare and common.  Unfortunately, Major League Baseball does not.

The marketing for Bonds’ record setter was absurd.  Subtract the chase of this record from the Giants’ 2007 season and no one, apart of die-hard Giants fans, has much interest in watching the team play this year.  To say that they stink is a massive understatement.  The other Barry in a Giants uniform (Zito) started last night, and he was feeble.   Zito, the Giants’ supposed staff ace has been eminently hittable all season.  If anyone needs proof, the Nationals, one of the least talented clubs in professional baseball, beat him handily last night.

If Barry Zito is representative of current big league pitchers worth $126 million over seven years then honestly, I rest my case.  Zito’s ERA so far this season is worse than the hack Bonds got his 756th homer off of last night, at 5.16.  Zito has 8 wins and 10 losses out of 23 starts this year.  If that’s what’s worth $18 million a year as a starter these days then we can be absolutely certain to see Bonds’ home run record fall and watch him sink into third, fourth and fifth place in the record books before this era is through.

Technorati Tags: Barry Bonds, Giants, Peter McGowan, Marco Scutaro, the A’s, Major League Baseball, Washington Senators, Pedro Martinez, Hideo Nomo, Greg Maddux, Mike Bacsik, the Nationals, Alex Rodriguez, Tom Glavine, Zito, Barry Zito

This has been the most frustrating season I can remember as an A’s fan in a looooong time.  Sure, the team utterly and completely stunk in 1998, the last losing season in recent memory, but no one expected them to even be decent that year.  That they won 74 games in 1998 seemed like a bonus.  This season they just reek.

My favorite whipping boy is, naturally, Bobby Crosby.  I’ve never been keen on him, but the last two seasons have really turned me against him.  For one, he’s hurt all the time - as in he is, as of today, on the DL again with broken bones in his hand from taking a ball off of it in last night’s game against the Angels.

Crosby just exudes mediocrity.  Early in his career with the A’s I started to turn on him because he seemed like he was afraid to get his uniform dirty.  After watching Miguel Tejada play shortstop for the A’s at the absolute peak of his defensive talents anyone who took his place was likely to disappoint, but Crosby did more than that.  He made me angry.  As far as I am concerned the guy is a hole in the middle of the infield.  Compared with 2nd Baseman, Mark Ellis, Crosby always looks like he can’t read the ball coming off the bat.

But ok, so maybe he’s no Michael Young, but at least he can hit, right?  Nope.  Crosby was supposed to be a middle of the order power hitter.  He’s got no power and when he inhabits the middle of the order he’s a guaranteed rally killer.

Unfortunately, the A’s have no one in the wings waiting to take over, and with his injury history Crosby is virtually untradeable.  If it weren’t for Shannon Stewart and Jack Cust I’d have nothing to cheer about when the A’s are at bat (except for those occasional brilliant games we get out of Mark Ellis and / or Marco Scutaro.  Pitching-wise the A’s have been a lot better than I expected this season.  Haren and Blanton have done great, and Chad Gaudin has been so much better than anyone could have hoped.  They almost make up for Rich Harden spending 99% of the season watching from the DL.

The only real show to look forward to from the A’s in 2007 is what they do at the trading deadline.  My guess is they move everyone they can - Kennedy, Kotsay, Piazza, Johnson and probably Stewart.  They’ve already designated Bobby Kielty for assignment, which is essentially an admission that they couldn’t trade him first but will entertain all serious offers now.

Go Mariners!

Technorati Tags: A’s, Bobby Crosby, Miguel Tejada, Mark Ellis, Michael Young, Shannon Stewart, Jack Cust, Marco Scutaro, Haren, Blanton, Chad Gaudin, Rich Harden, Kennedy, Kotsay, Piazza, Johnson, Bobby Kielty, Mariners

Wow, amazing that I’m writing about this guy again.  Especially considering that he shat the bed in the Pyrenees and was over 28 minutes out of first place when all hell broke loose on him and his team today.

So, Vinokourov got caught doping.  No testosterone pills for this guy.  None of that weak assed shit.  No way man.  Alexander was caught giving himself blood transfusions.  I guess you ought to win some kind of prize of competitive spirit for being ready, willing and able to give yourself a transfusion in an attempt to win a bike race.

Anyway, once again the papers are full of teeth gnashing about doping in cycling.  *yawn*  My local cycling club email list was abuzz with this story today and here’s what I had to say about it:

I have a somewhat radical view on the use of performance enhancing drugs in
sports - I don’t care.

Ok, that’s too harsh. I do care if people put stuff into their bodies that ultimately shortens their lifespans or ruins their quality of life in later years, but beyond that I don’t care.

I think we have a very strange relationship to the application of technology to the human body. You don’t see anyone getting up in arms about how absurdly light carbon framed bikes, wheels, cranks, etc. are. I’ve yet to hear anyone call the use of power meters for training cheating. And we all regularly eat specialized food and chug specialized scientifically designed beverages to help us ride longer, harder, faster.  We also don’t have a problem with people using computer modeling to design optimized training and fitness program to increase their power output, strength, etc.

But when it comes to drugs to enhance performance, well then we’re (and I mean that in terms of western society in general) all up in arms. I personally don’t have a problem with it. If you look at sport in terms of entertainment for spectators then anything that makes the sport more spectacular makes it more entertaining and more valuable as an entertainment commodity. So, if by doping cyclists can pull off feats of speed, strength, endurance and agility that make me as a spectator go “wow!” then why should I have a problem with it. And it only qualifies as cheating, frankly, if you can demonstrate to me that doping is the exception and not the rule, which I doubt anyone could do right now with any degree of credibility.

Or, here’s another way of looking at it, taken from another sport that’s currently mired in doping scandal - baseball. In a recent interview Bill James was asked about the use of performance enhancing drugs in the game.

Here’s an excerpt:

Q: Should players known to use (or strongly suspected to have used) performance-enhancing drugs be treated differently in history? Was the Baseball Writers Association of America electorate correct in not voting Mark McGwire to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot? Are you cheering for Barry Bonds?

A: I’m not cheering for Bonds, but then, I didn’t much like (Henry) Aaron, either. I look at it this way. There’s a rule in basketball against traveling but the NBA has pretty much stopped enforcing it. Well, they still call traveling but they will allow you to take about five steps without dribbling as you are running toward the basket. There was no “decision” not to enforce this rule; they just kind of lost track of it. They started not calling one step and progressed to not calling two steps, not calling three steps, and eventually they just kind of lost track of the rule. Should the players who took advantage of this failure to enforce the rule be banned from the NBA Hall of Fame? After all, aren’t they cheating? They’re not obeying the rules. Julius Erving, out. The Hall of Fame doesn’t need cheaters like you. Kobe, Michael, get out. If you don’t play by the rules the way Elgin Baylor did, you’re not deserving.

Or it is, rather, the responsibility of the LEAGUE to enforce the rule? It seems to me that it might be the responsibility of the league to enforce the rule rather than the responsibility of the media to punish those who didn’t obey the rule that wasn’t being enforced. I won’t name any players, but there are a whole bunch of superstars who are now or are going to be involved in the PED accusations. We CAN’T start picking and choosing who we honor on that basis. It’s hypocritical, and it’s impractical. And it diminishes the game.

This argument can easily be applied to cycling. Pro cyclists were doping 20 years ago, if not longer. The sport’s governing bodies didn’t do anything about it, or make any appreciable noise about it, until the media (particularly the French media, who have an agenda all their own) started harping on the subject.

The problem as I see it is twofold - on the one hand cycling, as a sport and a culture has to decide whether or not it considers PED use a problem. If it decides it’s a problem then it needs to come up with a systematic scheme for eliminating their use that punishes at the team level, not at the individual cyclist level. Punishing Floyd Landis or Jan Ulrich is pointless. These guys aren’t doing this in a vacuum, and perhaps what it takes to get rid of PED’s in cycling is to disqualify every team from competition and start fresh.

But from my perspective that’s silly. How about this - instead of constantly chasing dopers, just accept it. Make the rule that use of any illegal substance permanently disqualifies a rider and his team from future sanctioned competition. Use of legal substances must simply be fully disclosed, and failure to disclose disqualifies the rider and his team for five years. What you’ll get from disclosure is transparency into what each rider is using to help them compete (it’s not afterall a secret which brand of bike a rider uses, for example) and then all the riders can see the laundry list of crap some guy who finishes 150th in the Tour consumed or injected. Then the mystique will gradually wear off and within a few years you’ll see those lists get much, much shorter.

I get that final idea from an analysis of the players most recently punished for doping violations in baseball. To a man they’re all lousy players. Doping didn’t help them compete one tiny bit. If you have no talent or ability at your sport then taking pills, or injecting drugs into your body will not help you. And if you’re talented then you’ll win anyway.

So, how’s that for recycling a bit chunk of an earlier post and calling it a new blog?

In all seriousness, all that these doping scandals are doing is ruining the game/race for those of us who want to watch and soak up the excitement.  And like I said, it’s only cheating if the playing field isn’t level and there’s a sizable contingent of folks in the field of play or on the race course who aren’t doping, and anyone who makes that claim, well, I’ve got some land in Florida I’d like you to help me sell.

Technorati Tags: Vinokourov, Florida