Still Americas Pastime

Two nights ago, the Yankees won the World Series.  Due to an incredible amount of homework, I’m mentioning that for the first time right now.

But then again, the Yankees have now won the World Series 27 times, so it’s not really news.

Ok, that was a little unfair.  After all, isn’t part of the reason so many people hate the Yankees is because they’ve won more World Series than any other team?  In fact, the franchise with the most wins not named Yankees is the St. Louis Cardinals and they only have 10.

But this post isn’t really about the Yankees, it’s about the Free Agent market this offseason. 

Last year, the market was really interesting.  Some big name free agents signed massive contracts rather quickly.  But most free agents watched the fitful economy make teams bide their time and agonize much more over each dollar they offered.

Both sports and news analysts commented on the recession/depression lowering the amount of money that teams were going to spend on the Free Agent market.  With the U.S. economy supposed on the mend, could this year’s Free Agent market be a sign of better financial times to come?

As I was fact checking my last post to make sure that the Red Sox were indeed the only team to win more than one World Series in the decade, I noticed something interesting.  Since the Wild Card and three division set up made it through a full season (the idea was meant to start in the 1994 season, which was strike-shortened), it looked like the World Series have been more one-sided.

In the 14 years that the Wild Card has been in place, the team that lost the World Series has won a mere 18 games, or 1.29 games per series.  There have been 5 World Series sweeps in those 14 years, or 35% of the series.  Additionally, only 3 of the World Series have gone the full 7 games, or 21% of the series.

On the other hand, in the 14 years leading up to the Wild Card era, the team that lost the World Series has won 26 games, or 1.86 games per series.  Over those 14 years there have been only 2 sweeps, or 14%, and 5 went the full 7 games, 35%.

So it’s up to you to decide if it’s significant or merely a minor variation that will diminish as the Wild Card era continues?  Personally, I don’t know if I’m ready to say that it’s had that much of an effect, but I do know the only time I want to see a sweep in the World Series is when my Braves are sweeping someone (which hasn’t happened since they were in Boston in 1914).

Again, here’s a summary:

Wild Card Era: Losing Team 1.29 wins/series, swept 35% of the time, won three games 21% of the time

Previous 14 years: Losing Team 1.86 wins/series, swept 14% of the time, won three games 35% of the time

Well, as the next round of the MLB Postseason kicks off tomorrow, I find myself wondering if it’s the Dodgers turn to win it all.

The Dodgers are the only team of the four left that has yet to win a World Series title this decade.  The Phillies won last year (2008), the Angels won in 2002, and the Yankees back in 2000.

Additionally, there has only been one team this decade (the Boston Red Sox) who has won more than 1 World Series (2004 & 2007).  It seems as though the Dodgers would be heavily favored by recent history.

The Dodgers do have a tough road through the Philadelphia Phillies, but it should be a better series than last year.  I feel as though the young stars have matured greatly this season, plus Rafael Furcal is healthy.  I’m looking forward to it.

Of course, also being an Atlanta Braves fan, I want the Furcal (and the Dodgers) to beat the crap out of those Phillies.

Yeah, this post is going to be way more partisan than any other has been so far.  I probably should post about Jeter breaking Lou Gehrig’s record, but I mentioned that a couple of days ago.  (And, I just did mention it right there, so moving on.)

Instead, I’m just going to be happy the the Braves beat the Cardinals 1-0 in St. Louis, keeping their minuscule post-season hopes alive.

After an awful week of baseball (including a 3 game sweep at the hands of the Reds), the Braves have won a couple big games the past to nights.

I have to admit I haven’t seen that many games this year.  It is definitely harder following the Braves now that TBS doesn’t carry all their games.  Still I could have caught a few more.  Now I have to hope they can leapfrog their way into the playoffs so I can see a few more games.

The All-Star Game seems like a natural time to give you an update on my Fantasy Baseball Team.  I seem to be doing pretty well, even though I didn’t check on my team very much between the beginning of May and now.

I’m currently in 3rd place.  To be honest, I have to place most of the credit with my draft and the few moves I made in the first few weeks.

In the first few weeks I picked up/dropped 18 (9 signed, 9 to free agency) players and made a trade.  Haven’t really done anything since then.

There are a few things I need to improve on.  By not paying enough attention to news around the league, I missed a opportunity to make some moves.  For example, both Brian McCann and Joey Votto spent time on the DL and by the time I reacted, I had probably missed about 20 games of production from the two of them.

Also, until this post, I had not yet put Edison Volquez (hasn’t pitched since June 1st) and Jake Peavy (hasn’t pitched since June 8th) on the DL.  Since I’m only 5.5 points out of 2nd place and if I had picked up pitchers to get me 5 wins and around 60 strikeouts during the time they were out (quite possible) I’d be much closer, roughly 2 points out.

Obviously injuries happen and to step up my game I need to stay on top of them.

Scoring a ball game is a great way to stay involved in a game.  Also, it’s an invaluable skill to have if you have youngsters playing baseball.  Teams always need someone to score the game, and volunteering to score is a good way to support your kid(s) without undertaking the huge time commitment that coaching requires.

The need for fans to score MLB games themselves has decreased as JumboTron® displays and TV broadcasts are able to display the results of the batter’s previous plate appearances.  Accordingly, there are less people (in my experience) who know how to score a game.

The first thing you need is a scorecard.  These are usually available at the ballpark for Major League games.  Also, you can go out and buy a book of scorecards,or even buy them online.  There are different options to choose from.  I prefer ones with an empty box as opposed to ones with a diamond already there.

Once you have the scorecard, you need to do all the pregame work.  It’s pretty obvious where to put the starting lineups.  Just remember that almost all scorecards have two lines per lineup spot so that subs can be inserted in the correct part of the batting order.  Any other information you want to add is really a matter of preference.  I usually put the date on the scorecard, and maybe the time of game.  Some people add comments about the weather and the umpires.

Before the game is also a good time to remember/learn the numerical representation for the defensive positions.  1-Pitcher, 2-Catcher, 3-First baseman, 4-Second baseman, 5-Third baseman, 6-Shortstop, 7-Left Fielder, 8-Center Fielder, 9-Right Fielder.

Now you just have to wait for the game to start.

I’m currently watching the Civil Rights Game being played in Cincinnati, OH.  At present the Reds have squandered their 5-0 lead and are now losing to the Chicago White Sox 8-7.

But that’s not the real reason I’m posting on the game.

The Civil Rights Game had traditionally been played as an exhibition game.  This year it’s a regular season game, and it will be again next year (and the Reds will be involved again).

It doesn’t really mean more to me because it’s a regular season game.  True I haven’t normally watched the game, but to be honest, if it wasn’t a Reds game, I might not be watching it this year (depends on what other games were on).

Still I think it’s really cool that baseball has the Civil Rights Game.  Yes, most baseball fans (and most people in general) have heard the Jackie Robinson story, but it wasn’t as if Jackie showed up at the ballpark one day and everything was equal.

If the Civil Rights Game makes even just a few people realize both how far we’ve come and what we have left to do, then it’s been a success.

Congratulations to the Beacon Award Winners: Muhammad Ali, Bill Cosby, and Hank Aaron.

On a side note, if find the Civil Rights Game icon very interesting.  As you might have noticed, it’s a white and black player holding a bat. 

If you don’t understand the significance, one way to decide who’s up first in a sandlot game is for one player on a team to grab a bat somewhere around the middle.  A player from the other team places his hand on top of that, and they continue up the bat.  Now the way I’ve always played, the way to win was to be able to play your hand over the knob of the bat and touch the other player’s hand.  I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but it seems to me that the white player is going to win.

Ever wonder why people say “Welcome to the Big Leagues?”  Most people don’t think about the significance of that “s”.  The truth is that Major League baseball is the only major sport in America where two distinct leagues play each other for a championship.  Indeed, to my knowledge, it is the only one in the world.

The National League and the American League are truly different leagues, whereas the NHL, NBA, and NFL are divided into two conferences.  Why does this matter?  Because while conferences are merely organizational divisions, there is a significant rule difference between the two baseball leagues.  I’m talk, of course, about the Designated Hitter rule (for my thoughts on the DH, you can begin with this post).

That isn’t the difference.  In the other sports, teams play inter-conference games all the time (well, not quite true in the NHL, but they do play almost twice the number of inter-confernce games in proportion to the number of games in a season).  MLB teams only started playing interleague games in 1997, and it is only for a weekend in May and two weeks in June.

This difference is one of the reasons that interleague conparisons bother me.  It’s much more difficult to say which league is stronger in the MLB than which conference is stronger in the NFL.

“It’s like springtime–cold one day, hot the next day.  When you have a young team, you have a tendency to be inconsistent.”       -Dusty Baker

A reader left me this quote in a comment, and asked what I thought.  My first reaction is that he’s exactly right.  But I think she wanted more than that.

Why are young teams prone to inconsistency?  I mean, they spend all that time being seasoned in the minor leagues, shouldn’t they be ready for the Bigs?

Yes and no. 

The thing is that everyone in the Major Leagues is good.  No, not good, great.  Think about it.  There are only 750 active roster spots in the Major Leagues, and people from all over the world compete to occupy these spots.  However, everyone in the minor leagues is not great.  There are some greats, merely waiting for their chance to show the parent club what they can do.  But there are also people who will never make the jump from AAA to the Major Leagues.

This leads to the first reason for this inconsistency.  For batters, even the opposing team’s number 5 starter is better than most of the pitchers he’s faced before.  For pitchers, there are no longer easy outs (except the pitcher in NL games) in the lineup.  At least not compared to the AAA teams.

Along with the opposition’s increased talent, there is a lot of pressure on young players, especially one’s making their debut.  They have to perform well or risk being sent back to the farm.  Where a veteran can endure a slump and not really worry about being sent back down, a rookie might not have won the club’s confidence yet.  Not to mention the “Jersey Shock” (copyright me) of stepping into the box for first time and seeing Johnathan Papelbon ready to throw the ball a zillion miles an hour at you, or toeing the rubber and trying to figure out how to make sure Albert Pujols isn’t going to knock your pitch out of the atmosphere.

But even with all that, the biggest reason that young teams are so inconsistent is that they just don’t have a lot of experience.  As I said, everyone in the Major Leagues is great.  And this greatness is often recognized early in a player’s career.  Talented players tend to fast-track through the Majors, so they will have only played a few years (sometimes less) before their baptism of fire in the Majors.

Therefore, they haven’t learned what to do when they don’t have command of their fastball.  In the Minors, you can throw a fastball by a number of players.  In the Majors, even if you throw 100 mph, if you groove it down the middle, and they know it’s coming, it’s going to get hit.  Similarly, young hitters who have a hole in their swing will find pitchers able to consistently use it against them.

Conversely, their opponents have not only learned this lessons, they can recongize when a rookie is in trouble and know just how to exploit the weakness. 

The Reds are a pretty young team, but they’re doing alright.  I’m really interested to see what Dusty can do with a young team.  Previously he’s always had a superstar or two (Bonds, Sosa, Griffey Jr.) to carry his teams.

Ok, here’s a set of realistic goals along with what you can expect from me and Still America’s Pastime.

I will post two-three times a week.  This is doable, especially if I make an effort to do so, instead of just seeing if I’ll make it to the keyboard.

The continuation of the “I Call ‘Em as I See ‘Em” series, at least through the season.  I’ll finish up the DH parts, but not all this month.  It will go back to being the first Monday of the month (except this month, where it will be Thursday).

Monthly standing updates.  This will become weekly in August.

Random Game of the Week will no longer be a series, but I will occasionally post my analysis on a single game if I watch or listen to the whole thing.

 There you go.  Hopefully I’ll get on the ball, and give you a reason to keep coming back.