Unfortunately, Bradley is back in the news.  Despite the fact that he was traded to Seattle more than two months ago, Bradley continues to talk about his time in Chicago.  He is a man that needs constant attention, and he knows that if he continues to talk about his days with the Cubs, reporters will keep paying attention to him.

In his latest diatribe, Bradley claimed that he was a virtual prisoner in his own home while with the Cubs.  He claims that fans harrassed him so much that he was afraid to go out in public.

He also talked about the hate mail he got.  There’s no way I can justify the hate mail — especially the racial stuff — that Bradley allegedly received, but he’s not the first person to receive that kind of mail.  And by the way, Chicago isn’t the only place it happens.  It is a sad fact of life that athletes, particularly African-American athletes, receive hate mail.  Even the all-white U.S. Curling Team received some hate mail (and texts and tweets) when they failed to meet expectations at the Vancouver Olympics. 

But the thing that irritated me most about the hate mail issue is that ESPN reporter Colleen Dominguez asked him if he thought the hate mail was coming from within the Cubs lockerroom.  Has anyone every suggested that Bradley was receiving hate mail from his own teammates or from within the organization?  Has Bradley ever suggested it?  This was just a piss-poor effort on a reporter’s part to try to stir up trouble where none existed. 

Bradley also was critical of Lou Piniella for not apologizing in front of his teammates after calling Bradley a “piece of shit.”  Piniella called Bradley into his office and apologized in person, behind closed doors.  Given the circumstances, Piniella’s apology seemed entirely appropriate.  He (Piniella) was upset that his angry remark concerning Bradley had gone outside the confines of the tunnel between the dugout and the clubhouse where it was uttered, and didn’t want to make more of a spectacle of the entire incident.

But the fact is, the apology was just something else for Bradley to complain about.  Had Piniella apologized in front of the entire team, Bradley would have complained about that.

Finally, Bradley reiterated his charge that students, teachers, and parents at his child’s daycare were calling the child derogatory names.  Back in September 2009, Bradley and his mother claimed that Bradley’s three-year old was subjected to a “slew of racial slurs” from students, parents and teachers at the daycare the child attended. 

As I stated at the time, although I take racism very seriously, these claims simply do not hold water.  They sounded then, and they sound now, like the desperate claims of a desperate man.  As I understand it, children of all races attended the daycare, but no one else ever complained of similar treatment and the daycare was never cited for any type of bad behavior toward the children.

Bradley is a walking, talking car wreck.  You just can’t turn away from the ridiculous statements he makes.  And he knows that.  That’s why he keeps making them.  He just needs reporters to pay attention to him.  And the reporters are only too happy to oblige.

When asked if Mariano Rivera is the best closer in baseball history — an opinion widely held among those around baseball — Gossage was only too quick to toot his own horn.

“I think that he is a tremendous relief pitcher. He’s the best current-day, modern reliever. But it’s just like you can’t compare the 500-home-run club today to the old 500-home-run club. When I was inducted into the Hall of Fame, I was told that I had 53 saves with seven-plus outs. I was told that Mariano had one and Trevor Hoffman had two. So I think that says it in a nutshell.”

Says what in a nutshell?  I supported Gossage’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame.  I felt he belonged.  But his constant harping on how many two inning saves he got is getting old.  He did his job and he did it well, but that’s not how the game is played anymore.  Mariano Rivera is almost never called on to pitch two innings for a save, so how can Gossage or anyone else draw any conclusion from the fact that Gossage had 53 seven-plus out saves and Rivera only has one?

And by the way, don’t act like you didn’t know how many seven-plus out saves you had, Goose.  Before you were ever inducted into the Hall of Fame, you were criss-crossing the country reciting your stats to anyone that would listen.  No one knows your stats better than you do.

At the end of the interview, Brescia asked Gossage if he thought Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame.  Gossage replied,

“No. And I mean no. In the Olympics when they catch them using performance-enhancing drugs, they strip their medals. I can’t see any difference in baseball. None of the steroid users should get in.”

I’m growing tired of this idea that some people like to spout that before steroids, baseball was as pure as the driven snow.  It is especially maddening when former players — guys who were around for other other types of cheating — float this nonesense.

One of my writing heroes, Joe Posnanski, does a fantastic job of explaining how baseball has always had cheating of one sort or another.  During Gossage’s time, amphetamines were the drug du jour.  Posnanski writes:

“Then there’s amphetamines. I have never understood why many people are so outraged about baseball players’ steroid use and so unperturbed by amphetamine use. I guess it makes some sense on a gut level — injecting yourself with steroids seems so much more villainous than popping a couple of greenies to get a boost. Steroids seemed much more in our faces as fans. The players unapologetically got bigger. A few of them hit an unnatural number of home runs. There seemed a much more direct cause and effect … steroids = bigger muscles = more home runs. And maybe the cause and effect did not seem quite as obvious with the widespread use of amphetamines.

“BUT … is any of that true? Best I can tell, amphetamines (like steroids) were illegal without prescription in American society but were just a part of the baseball culture. Best I can tell, amphetamines are performance enhancing drugs that, many people feel, sharpen focus and increase energy levels and help an athlete overcome exhaustion. Best I can tell, amphetamines can have terrible side effects and can be difficult to quit (and can be extremely dangerous to quit).

“In other words, it seems more or less the same level of cheating and more or less the same level of wrong. As far as whether amphetamines had a huge effect on the game … I don’t know. I don’t want to throw names out there, but there are records and performances — consecutive games played and huge stolen bases totals just as a for instance — that you could logically connect to amphetamine use.”

And just to drive the point home a little further, Gossage was part of a Yankees’ clubhouse that was notorious for it’s use of amphetamines.  I don’t know if Gossage used the drug or not, but he certainly had to know that they were being used.  Maybe that’s how Gossage had the energy to throw so many seven-plus out saves.  Who knows?  But if it is, if Gossage used amphetamines even just one time, should that disqualify him from the Hall of Fame?  Should he be disqualified simply because he played during the amphetamine era?

Goose Gossage and other former players need to take a good, long look at themselves and their contemporaries before they start condemning steroid users and those suspected of steroid use.  Baseball has skeletons in its closet going back to the game’s earliest days.  If the requirement for induction into the Hall of Fame was that you had to be chaste, moral, upright, and pure, the Hall of Fame would be an empty building.

Serrano defected from Cuba in April 2009 after being arrested in Cuba in January 2009 for attempted illegal departure.  At least we know he’s persistent.  The right-hander began pitching in the Cuban professional baseball league at the age of 16.  He is believed to be 20 or 21-years old, although MLB Trade Rumors is now saying he may be 22.

Oddly, it has been reported that Serrano threw two simulated innings for Cubs scouts, striking out four and giving up one run on an infield hit, but Muskat reports that a “baseball source” (what does that mean?) denied the report. 

Although Muskat’s article didn’t mention money, the website CubanBallPlayers.com says that Serrano will be paid $250,000 by the Cubs.  Muskat’s article does say that Serrano still must take a physical and there is additional paperwork that must be completed before the deal is finalized.

It will be interesting to see where Serrano slots in with the Cubs.  I would think a guy who has been pitching for five years in the Cuban Serie Nacional would be able to go directly to Double-A or Triple-A, but that remains to be seen.

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Yesterday, I wrote a post about the true value of on-base percentage.  I’m very accepting of advanced statistics, but I think they need to be viewed in the proper perspective.  Baseball is a relatively complex game and expecting to look at a set of numbers (or worse yet, just one number) in order to understand the game is unrealistic (Not to mention that it takes some of the fun out of the game).

Paul Sullivan with the Chicago Tribune recently wrote an article talking about how the Cubs’ front office is beginning to look more and more at statistics in their evaluation of players.  I thought the story painted a pretty amatuerish picture of the Cubs front office.  Jim Hendry is quoted in the article saying he and his staff have always done more statistical analysis than people thought.  He also pointed out that the Cubs have had a “numbers cruncher” (i.e. Director of Baseball Information) on the staff for the past seven years.  Even so, Sullivan made it sound like the Cubs had just heard about advanced statistics.

 Rob Neyer at ESPN.com then had to jumped on the story.  Neyer’s article, entitled Cubs Threaten to Join 21st Century, was kind of snarky.  Neyer, a guy who has made a career out of analyzing baseball statistics, seemed almost personally offended that a professional baseball team in this day and age would not have the same type of religious fervor over statistics that he has.  Neyer was especially snarky when he wrote, “But Jim Hendry admits that he’ll ‘always be a scouting guy first.’ I wonder if the Cubs would be better if he just went back to being a scout, period.”  That was kind of mean.

I like Neyer and I appreciate his statistical perspective on the game.  But sometimes he (and others) become almost apoplectic when anyone suggests that baseball can be viewed through something other than a statistical lens.  Jim Hendry is not Bill James.  Okay, we get it.  Is it really necessary to suggest he should lose his job because he doesn’t worship baseball statistics the way some others (I’m not naming names) do?  That seems a tad bit harsh to me.

By the way, Jim Hendry probably should lose his job, but it’s not because he doesn’t take baseball statistics as seriously as Rob Neyer.

**********

This next bit of information is almost too weird to believe.  As you know, all of the teams in the Cactus League (other than the Cubs) are opposed to the funding plan proposed in the Arizona House of Representatives.  The proposal calls for an additional dollar of tax on rental cars and an 8% tax on tickets to all Cactus League Spring Training games.  I think the opposition is silly, short-sighted, and will eventually come back to bite the other teams, but what do I know?

Anyway, the Cactus League held their annual kickoff breakfast this past Tuesday at HoHoKam Stadium in Mesa, Spring Training home of your Chicago Cubs.  The breakfast is an annual league affair designed to give teams the opportunity to thank their host cities shortly before the Cactus League season begins.  

Because the event was being hosted in Mesa (the host rotates each year), four Cactus League teams decided to boycott the breakfast in protest over the proposed legislation that would be used to build a new spring Training home for the Cubs.

According to a report on the Arizona Republic website, the White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, and Reds were the four teams who refused to participate. 

“In a nutshell, we continue to feel it’s fundamentally wrong to implement a tax on loyal baseball fans,” Angels spokesman Tim Mead said, acknowledging that his team stayed away for that reason. “We just fundamentally disagree.”

If it’s “wrong to implement a tax on loyal baseball fans,” then who should be taxed?  If you’re going to tax someone so you can build a baseball stadium, doesn’t it make sense to tax someone or something that has to do with baseball?  Apparently, it’s not “fundamentally wrong” to tax people who rent cars in Arizona.  At least Angels spokesman Tim Mead didn’t say he thought it was wrong.

Josh Rawitch of the Dodgers had this to say:

“The Dodgers and White Sox simply feel it is wrong to ask fans coming to Camelback Ranch to pay for another team’s new stadium with a surcharge on their tickets.”

But who paid for the Dodgers new stadium, Josh?  Wasn’t it the fans of other teams, as well as people who couldn’t care less about baseball? 

It’s important to remember that the four teams who boycotted the kick-off breakfast in Mesa all have benefitted from taxpayer funding for their stadiums.  It was taxpayer funding that lured the White Sox, Dodgers and Reds away from Florida into the Cactus League.  It was also taxpayer funding that build Camelback Ranch and lured the White Sox out of Tucson, a move that ended up sticking the taxpayers of Tucson with a $30 million bill and no Cactus League team.

Seriously, these teams could not be more hypocritical if they tried.  And even if you oppose a proposed tax, is boycotting a breakfast really the best way to voice your opposition, or is it just a completely classless, immature move?  Arizona House of Representatives Majority Leader John McComish thinks it’s the latter.

“I think it’s a shame to boycott a kickoff breakfast,” McComish said. “That’s what petulant children do. In this case, they already had their turn at bat, they got their stadium.”

In the end, I don’t see this working out well for the other teams in the Cactus League.  If funding can not be found for the Cubs new stadium in Arizona, they’ll likely leave for Florida where funding is already in place and waiting for them.  And when they do, the teams of the Cactus League will lose their biggest draw.  By some estimates, the Cubs generate 40% of the economic impact that the Cactus League has on the Arizona economy.  With fewer Cubs fans, attendance will likely drop across the league, resulting in lower Spring Training revenues for the teams left behind. 

Honestly, the strategy being employed by the owners of the other teams doesn’t seem very well thought out.  Of course, when all is said and done, they’ll still have new stadiums to go back to that someone else has paid for.  So they have that going for them.

I’ve been thinking about on-base percentage a lot recently.  I grew up at a time when batting average was the “go to” stat.  If a guy was a .300 hitter, he was a good hitter.  The closer he got to .200, the less valuable he was.

RBI was also an important stat.  The more runs your team scored, the better your chance of winning, so scoring runs and driving in runs was important.

From a baseball statistics perspective, it was a more simple time.  Many of today’s stats hadn’t been invented yet, and the ones that were, were either poorly understood or barely utilized.

As I’ve grown older and statistics have become more sophisticated, I’ve tried to understand and embrace them.  I don’t want to be a Luddite, unwilling to accept that there is a better way.  I want to be one of those guys that gets advanced statistics annd use them to better understand player and team performance.

And yet, I bristle at some of the statistics I run across.  Many are difficult to understand and often are unnecessarily complex.  Part of the problem is that I’m not particularly adept at mathematics, so some of the stats are simply beyond my ability to comprehend.  That’s okay, if they make sense and shed light on a player’s performance, I can accept the numbers even if I don’t understand the equation that created them.  After all, I don’t know how to wire a house, but I have no trouble turning on a light switch. 

And then there’s on-base percentage.  It’s an easily understood statistic.  On-base percentage — or OBP — is the percentage of time a player reaches base divided by the player’s number of plate appearances.  Unlike batting average, which only considers a player’s hits divided by their official at-bats, OBP considers all plate appearances, and adds walks and hit-by-pitch into the equation.

I like OBP.  I think you can tell a lot about a hitter by looking at OBP.  It must be a good statistic because there are a lot of people who call it “the single most important statistic” or “the ‘go to’ statistic.”  They compare players based largely on their OBP and they often eschew what they see with their own eyes in favor of quoting a player’s OBP.

A while back, I wrote a post explaining why I thought Andre Dawson should be in the Hall of Fame.  In that post, I quoted Joe Posnanski, who was opposed to Dawson’s candidacy primarily because his OBP was too low.

Posnanski wrote:

“On-base percentage is not some convoluted modern statistic. On-base percentage is not something new … it goes back to the time before Ty Cobb. On-base percentage is not even about walks. On-base percentage is simply the core of baseball, the very heart of it since the first ball hit the first stick. It is about how many times a batter gets on — and, conversely, how many times he makes outs. It is what the game is all about.

“It isn’t about walks, it really isn’t. That’s one thing everyone seems to miss. You say OBP and everyone says, “Oh, walks.” But that’s not it. Walks and hits by pitch make up a pretty small portion of on-base percentage. Most of it is hitting.”

Joe says that OBP is not about walks or hit-by-pitch, it’s about hitting.  In fact, he says walks and hit-by-pitch make up a very small portion of OBP.  If that is the case, why do we place such emphasis on OBP over batting average?  Why has batting average recently been relegated to the back seat while OBP sits up front?

Despite my immense respect for Joe Posnanski, I have to disagree with him here.  OBP is about walks and HBP.  If it wasn’t, we’d just stick with batting average.  Walks, in particular, play a large role in OBP, not just in the number, but in the way people, particularly those that consider themselves “stat heads,” perceive OBP.

For instance — and I almost hate to bring this up – a lot of “stat heads” were excited (or at least happily approved of) the signing of Milton Bradley by the Cubs last year.  In 2008, Bradley led the American League in OBP, and his signing was viewed as a step in the right direction for a Cubs front office that had the reputation of being stat ignorant.   Finally, it was claimed, the Cubs had joined the 21st century and were ready to give OBP it’s due.

Forget for the moment Bradley’s disciplinary problems.  He is a troubled man, but that is not important to this discussion.  What is important is that Bradley had an OBP in 2008 of .436 and a career OBP of .371 (post-2009).  In fact, Bradley has had a good or really good OBP every year since 2003.  And yet, his stats for runs and RBI have not been very impressive during that period.  For instance, he scored 78 runs and had 77 RBI in 2008 with Texas.  Those were both career highs for him.  As a general rule, Bradley doesn’t score many runs nor does he knock in many runners.

“But wait,” I can hear my sabermetric friends say.  “Runs and RBI are team dependent.  Plus, Bradley has a history of injury, so he rarely plays a full season.”  Fair enough.  Then let’s look at Bradley’s numbers in 2003 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Bradley played 141 games that year, the most in his career.

During the 2004 season, Bradley hit .267 with an OBP of .362.  He had 67 RBI and scored 72 runs.   The Dodgers scored 761 runs and finished first in the NL West with a record of 93-69.  The average number of runs that year in the NL was 751, so the Dodgers were slightly above average in run production.

Contrast those numbers with what Andre Dawson did for the Cubs in 1991.  That year, Dawson played 149 games, just eight more than Bradley played in 2004.  In 1991, Dawson hit .272 with an OBP of just .302.  And yet, Dawson fininshed the year scoring 69 runs and he drove in 104.

In 1991, the Cubs scored a total of 690 runs.  The league average was 681 runs.

Let’s compare the numbers:

                                                   Games        PA      Batting Avg      OBP      Runs      RBI      Team Runs      Lge Avg

Milton Bradley                            141            597           .267             .362         72         67              761                  751
Andre Dawson                          149            596           .272             .302         69        104             690                  681

The numbers that should jump out at you are Bradley’s 60 more points of OBP than Dawson and Dawson’s 37 more RBI than Bradley.  It’s worth mentioning also that Dawson achieved those 37 additional RBI on a Cubs team that scored 71 fewer total runs than Bradley’s Dodgers. 

So, why the big difference in OBP?  In 2004, Bradley walked 71 times compared to the 22 times Dawson walked in 1991.  Bradley collected six HBP while Dawson collected five.  So the big difference is walks. 

Walks are good.  Walks can lead to good things.  I don’t want to diminish the importance of walks.  But what good did it do Bradley’s team that he walked so many times in 2004?  Obviously, the walks helped Bradley build a nice OBP, but they didn’t help his team all that much.  Those walks didn’t do a very good job of scoring runs or pushing other runners across the plate.

Really, we’re not talking about walks here.  We’re talking about approach.  I hate to resort to my own observations here, but sometimes you can tell things with your eyes.  In 2009 with the Cubs, Bradley would go up to the plate with runners in scoring position and he would look for the walk.  This sometimes resulted in him earning a base-on-balls, and moved the responsibility of driving in the runner(s) to someone else.  Other times (it seemed like a lot of times), it resulted in Bradley looking at strike three.  His approach to hitting is to earn a walk if possible so that the burden of driving in runs is put on someone else’s shoulders.

Dawson was just the opposite.  He viewed it as his responsibility to drive in runs.  And despite the fact that he drew very few walks and had a low OBP, he succeeded in driving in runs. 

I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I don’t think OBP is important or valuable.  That’s not the case.  All I’m saying is that OBP is not the end all, be all that some people make it out to be. 

Joe Posnanski speaks for a lot of stat heads when he says, “On-base percentage is simply the core of baseball…It is what the game is all about.”  I respectfully disagree.  Scoring more runs than your opponent is what the game is all about.  To the extent that OBP can help you score more runs than your opponent, then I’m all for.  But I think it is important to recognize that OBP by itself doesn’t win games.

When I started this post, I said that I wasn’t sure how it was going to end.  I’m still not sure.  I want to again drive home the point that I am not opposed to OBP.  I’m simply saying that OBP by itself is not enough.  A player has to have the proper approach at the plate.  He has to be willing to get a hit when a hit is needed.  Walks are nice, but sometimes the situation calls for a hit rather than a walk. 

I also want to say that a good OBP has to be coupled with good RBI and run numbers.  You can’t simply dismiss these stats because they are “team dependent.”  Over the course of time, these things even out.  After a player is around for a few years, they get the opportunity to score runs and drive in runs.  RBI and runs are still valuable and important statistics.  They should not be cast away to the island of old time, out-dated stats.

OBP is part of the process, it’s not the result.  The desired result is winning ball games.  OBP is just one of many factors that can lead to the result.

That’s all I’m saying.  And that’s how I’m going to end this post.

In Fontenot’s defense, a lot was asked of him.  Being handed a big league starting gig is a lot of responsibility, especially for a guy who had never been given that chance before.  So you could say, Fontenot didn’t rise to the occasion.  He was given an opportunity and he didn’t take advantage of it.

But Fontenot wasn’t just asked to be the Cubs starting second baseman.  When Aramis Ramirez when down with a shoulder injury, Fontenot was asked to move over to third base — a position he had never played in the big leagues – to replace the former all-star.  To Fontenot’s credit, he played a credible third base, but his hitting never did take off.

I opined here on a few occasions that Mike Fontenot is not the type of starting second baseman that a team with a $140 million payroll should be giving a starting job to.  Despite that fact, he was given a chance in 2009 and failed to take advantage.  My hope was that the Cubs would make a move to add a legitimate big league second baseman for 2010, but that didn’t happen.  Jim Hendry didn’t seem to be interested in adding a second baseman during the off season and the Cubs have gone to Spring Training with Fontenot and Jeff Baker fighting it out for the starting gig.

But last week, Lou Pinella said that he would give Fontenot an opportunity at shortstop with an eye toward being Ryan Theriot’s back up.  In his career, Fontenot has played a total of four games at shortstop.  In those four games, he has had a total of four chances and has committed two errors.  He has a fielding percentage of .500 and a UZR150 rating at shortstop of -257.0.  In case you’re not familar with these stats, let me just say that they are really bad.

If Fontenot makes the team as the back up shortstop, he will likely displace Andres Blanco, a superb defensive shortstop.  Blanco has a UZR150 rating of 12.4.  In 2009, in 138 plate appearances, Blanco hit .252/.303/.341 with one homerun and 12 RBI.  Blanco is the very definition of a defensive replacement.  He’s the epitome of the type of player you want on your bench as a late inning replacement.

To make things even a bit more complicated, Blanco is out of minor league options, so if he doesn’t make the 25-man roster, he’s almost assuredly gone.  The Cubs won’t be able to send him to the minors unless he clears waivers, and it’s unlikely that he would clear waivers.  Some other team will view Blanco as a great option as a backup infielder, and they’ll claim him.

Meanwhile, the Cubs will have Mike Fontenot as their backup middle infielder.  A guy who barely hits better than Blanco (and there’s a good argument to be made that he doesn’t hit as well as Blanco), but cannot field anywhere near as good as Blanco.  Why would the Cubs do this?

There are a couple of reasons.  If Fontenot can make the team as the backup shortstop and backup/starting second baseman, a spot will be open on the 25-man roster.  That spot would likely be taken by Kevin Millar (assuming Chad Tracy already has a spot on the bench).

Fontenot also has the “advantage” of being left handed.  The Cubs are going to be overly right handed again in 2010, so they’d like to have Fontenot’s left-handed bat on the bench.  Forget for the moment that Fontenot isn’t much of a hitter.  He’s left-handed and sometimes, that’s all that matters.

I’m a big “team chemistry” guy, and keeping Millar around would likely be good for team chemistry.  At least that’s the general consensus.  But I’m also a big “let’s win some games” kind of guy and I’m not sure that losing the services of Andres Blanco in favor of Kevin Millar would be a good thing from a win-loss standpoint.  In my opinion, it’s more important for the Cubs to be successful on the field than it is for them to be fun and well-liked. 

It’s still very early in Spring Training.  A lot can change.  Giving Fontenot an opportunity to play some shortstop in Spring Training is much different than giving him a regular season job.  Who knows, the “Fontenot experiement” may be over this week.  But until it is, I will remain a bit nervous.  I remember what happened the last time the Cubs decided to become more left handed, and it wasn’t pretty.  I’d just as soon not see that mistake repeated.

Of course, now I’m old and smart, and I know that “hope springs eternal” are the first three words in Alexander Pope’s poem, An Essay on Man.  The poem was written in 1733, before baseball was even invented.  Although to hear some Cubs fans, you’d think that was the same year the Cubs started training in Mesa.  But I digress.

Despite the fact that I now know the origin of the phrase, I can’t help but associate it with Spring Training.  After all, at the beginning of Spring Training, all team’s are tied for first and fans from each team have reason to hope that this is the year their boys of summer will bring home the prize.  Well, at least that’s how it’s supposed to be.

The truth is that fans for several teams know that their teams don’t stand a chance of making the post-season, let alone win a World Series championship.    That’s not how it’s supposed to be in professional sports.  The rules of the sport are supposed to make the playing field even — or as even as possible — for all teams.  In this respect, baseball fails miserably.

Once again in 2010, the team with the highest payroll (Yankees) will outspend the team with the lowest payroll (Pirates) by more that five times.  Not only does that not create an even playing field, but it creates a situation where the lowest payroll team has absolutely no chance of competing.  Under baseball’s current rules, the Pirates are simply fodder used to fill out the schedule.

And the Pirates are not alone.  They are joined at the bottom of the payroll ladder by the Nationals, Rangers, Athletics, Marlins, and Padres.  All teams that have very little chance of posting a winning record and virtually no chance of making the post-season.

I can hear the naysayers now saying that the Rangers were competitive in the weak AL West just last year.  That’s true, but the AL West is better this year and the Rangers will likely not be as good. 

The naysayers also point to the Marlins who, despite league leading low payrolls have won two World Series titles since 1997.  Again, true, but the Marlins are the exception.  If it takes a miracle for a team to rise to the top, then the playing field probably isn’t very level.

Many fans point to the Yankees for outspending every other team.  I am not a Yankee basher, at least not in this context.  Baseball is flush with money.  At a time when other sports are seeing their revenues decrease (some substantially), baseball actually saw an increase in revenue in 2009.  Attendance was down, but revenue was up.  In fact, according to Maury Brown at The Biz of Baseball,  MLB’s revenues hit a record $6.6 billion in 2009.

That means that teams have more revenue sharing money coming in for the 2010 season.  Even so, teams at the bottom of the payroll ladder continue to spend less on payroll than they receive in revenue sharing.

At one time, I was in favor of a salary cap for MLB that included a minimum amount team’s had to spend on payroll.  I was never completely comfortable with the idea of a salary cap, but I couldn’t think of any other way to even the playing field.

Then last November, I ran across a column by Jayson Stark of ESPN.com in which he did a fantastic job of explaining the problem and offering a solution.  In his article, Stark pointed out that as many as 10 teams (one-third of all MLB teams) receive more in revenue sharing and TV/radio rights (local and national) than they spend on payroll.  (That figure is up to 13 of the 30 teams based on 2010 projected payroll figures)

In my original post on this subject, I explained Stark’s solution to the problem like this:

Stark then offers a solution than I like much better than my original salary cap solution.  Stark suggests that MLB continue to tax the highest spending teams just as they do now, but also start taxing the lowest spending teams.  Set payroll parameters that discourage the wealthiest teams from spending their competitors into oblivion, but which also encourage the “poorest” teams to spend the money they receive from the central fund, revenue sharing, and local TV rights to improve their teams and to compete on the field.

As Stark points out, this proposal will not cure all of MLB’s ills, but it will improve competitive balance and the play on the field.  And once competitive balance is established, many of MLB’s problems will seem much less important.

For years, the NFL has bragged about the parity they have been able to achieve.  On any given Sunday, any one team can beat any other team in the NFL.  Not so in MLB.  Every year, there are teams that don’t stand a chance of being competitive, let alone have hopes for the post-season.  Instead of creating parity, MLB has created a parody of what a competitive, well-run league should look like. 

For fans of two-thirds of the teams in MLB, hope springs eternal again this year.  Some teams may be long shots, but at least they stand a chance.  Not so for the other one-third of teams.  Before the season even gets started, they are out of the running.  For fans of those teams, “hope springs eternal” doesn’t hold any special meaning.  It’s simply a line from a poem.

Today is the 70th birthday of Ronald Edward Santo, former Cubs third baseman, Cubs radio analyst, and arguably the Cubs #1 fan.  Happy Birthday, Ron!   May this be the last birthday you spend without the title “Hall of Famer” in front of your name.

Opposition to the plan to fund the Cubs new spring Training facility put forth by Arizona House Majority Leader John McComish continues to build.   The plan calls for an 8% tax on all Spring Training tickets.  Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the White Sox, is leading the charge against the proposed legislation.  Now, all of the MLB owners with Spring Training facilities in Arizona have gone on record as opposed to the funding plan.  MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has also voiced his opposition to the plan.

The thing that gets me about the opposition is how hypocritical it is.  In essence, the crux of the opposition is that it is unfair for fans of the other 14 teams in the Cactus League to help pay for the Cubs Spring Training facility.  Is it more fair for an Arizona resident who has no interest in baseball at all to pay a tax that would help build the facility?  Remember, most of the MLB owners opposed to the current plan have already received taxpayer funding to help build and/or maintain their Spring Training facilities.  These are the same owners who have no problem charging their fans premium ticket prices when the Cubs come to town.  “It’s okay to gouge the fans,” these owners seem to be saying, but only if the money goes in the owners’ pockets.

The solution being offered by Bud Selig and MLB is that the state should simply use tax-increment financing.  This method of financing has been used in the past to finance big projects.  The idea is that the projects will eventually generate tax dollars, so the state (or county) will front the money to the developer to build the project and then they’ll get the money back once the taxes start to flow in.  It’s a nice idea, but is currently not allowed in Arizona.  For Selig’s plan to work, the Arizona Legislature would first have to propose, debate, and pass a bill that would allow the state to use tax-increment financing.  It’s a little naive on Selig’s part to expect all of this to happen before the end of the year.

In addition to MLB owners and Bud Selig, opposition is mounting at the grassroots level to oppose any referendum that comes before the voters of Mesa to help fund the Cubs new facility.  Initially, Mesa voters were told that no local taxes would be used to fund the project.  However, even if the tax plan being proposed in the Arizona Legislature passes unaltered, it will likely only raise about $58 million.  That’s $26 million less than the anticipated cost of the new facility.  Mesa taxpayers will be looked to for at least part of the shortfall.    Because of this, local opposition in Mesa is already mounting.

The way the deal will work if everything falls into place is that the Cubs will purchase a piece of land and then turn it over to the City of Mesa.  Mesa will build a new ballpark on the land and then give the Cubs exclusive rights to use the stadium, other buildings, and land.  The Cubs will not have to pay rent.

Because of this proposed arrangement,  the biggest threat to the funding proposal may come from the conservative Goldwater Institute in Arizona.  Clint Bolick, Director of the Institute, pointed to a recent Arizona court decision that makes it unconstutional for a government entity (in this case, the City of Mesa) to provide a benefit to a private entity (the Cubs) without receiving a commensurate benefit in return.  According to Bolick, the only thing the Cubs are offering is to show up, which is inadequate under the Arizona Supreme Court decision. 

As Bolick points out in his op-ed piece in the East Valley Tribune:

Any baseball fan would want to have the Cubs here. And certainly the Cactus League is a valuable asset. But at some point, incentives become illegal subsidies, and taxpayers are asked to do too much.

Whether the current proposal is unconstutional or not is almost immaterial.  If the proposal draws a lawsuit and a long and costly legal battle ensues, the Cubs new Spring Training home will be in jeopardy.  If the Goldwater Institute files a lawsuit, how expensive will it be for the State and/or the City of Mesa to fight it?  Will they be willing to fight it?  What will it cost?  At what point does support of the proposal become more trouble than it’s worth?

And from the Cubs prospective, do they really want to get themselves in the middle of this fight?  When they agreed to negotiate exclusively with the City of Mesa, they were given assurances that funding for the project would be found.  If funding becomes a big question mark (bigger than it is now), are the Cubs better off turning their attention to Naples?

I know there is a large and vocal portion of Cubs fans who believe they should stay in Arizona come hell or high water.  But at what point does the effort become futile?  Naples is offering to build a Spring Training home for the Cubs using primarily private money.  The tax money that would be needed for the project has already been approved.  There’s very little that needs to be done to move forward with the project other than getting the go ahead from the Cubs.

The Arizona project is far from a sure thing.  Funding is currently a huge question mark.  Even if the current proposal passes the legislature, it awaits a potentional court challenge.  If the court challenge doesn’t materialize, the project still has the problem of finding approximately $26 million which will likely have to come out of the coffers of the City of Mesa.  Will voters be willing to hand the Cubs a $26 million check?

There are many obstacles that the current proposal in the Arizona Legislature must overcome.  Although the proposal passed committee, it will face much stiffer opposition in the full house.  If it clears that hurdle, a lawsuit (or threat of a lawsuit) from the Goldwater Institute could still derail the entire project.

Everyone wants the Cubs to stay in Arizona, but at the moment, no one wants to help pay the cost of keeping the team in the Cactus League.  And all the while, Naples is sitting on the sidelines with what appears to be a no-muss, n0 fuss proposal.  It will be interesting to see how long the Cubs loyalty to Arizona lasts before they change directions.

Baseball prediction systems are not new.  They’ve been around for a while.  But this year, they seem to be coming out of the woodwork.  Either that, or I’m just paying closer attention.

Baseball Prospectus has what they call their PECOTA system.  According to their website:

(PECOTA) (s)tands for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm. PECOTA is BP’s proprietary system that projects player performance based on comparison with thousands of historical player-seasons. PECOTA analyzes similarities with past player-seasons based not only on rate statistics, but also height, weight, age, and many other factors.

BP’s PECOTA system predicts that the Cubs will win between 77-82 games in 2010 and will finish third in the NL Central behind the Cards and Reds.  Ouch! 

But take heart Cubs fans.  PECOTA predicted that the Cubs would win 92 games last year.  That predication didn’t work out too well.

Since it’s inception in 2003, PECOTA has been off an average of eight games (+/-) on predicting the Cubs season record.  That means the Cubs could win between 71-90 games in 2010 and PECOTA would remain as accurate as they have been historically.  It’s not really much help, is it?

The CAIRO system (CAIRO v.03) predicts that the Cubs will win 83-84 games in 2010 and will finish in second place in the NL Central behind St. Louis.  CAIRO is touted as the most reliable of the baseball prediction systems (based on 2009 results).  They beat out THT, PECOTA, ZIPS, CHONE, and Marcel (poor Marcel).

Although I think I pretty much agree with the CAIRO prediction for the Cubs, I still have a hard time taking it seriously.  First, the predictions are made fairly early in the off season, even before all free agents are signed and rosters are set.  To CAIRO’s credit, they warn readers of this weakness right up front.

Second, there are simply too many variables that can happen during the course of the season to accurately predict what is going to happen.  For instance, what happens to the predictions for the NL Central if Albert Pujols goes down early in the year with a season ending injury?  What if Chase Utley and the Phillies have a falling out and Utley is traded to the Cubs at the trade deadline (my personal baseball fantasy)?  Each prediction system admits that they can not account for unforeseen injuries, but the truth is that each year, many teams have unforeseen injuries.  And the key word there is “unforeseen.”  They can’t be anticipated or fully planned for, either by the teams or the prediction systems.

I understand the desire to be able to predict the future.  Our desire to do this goes far beyond the confines of baseball.  Even so, our ability to predict the future has been shown time and time again to be somewhere between piss poor and futile.  Just ask all of the people who have designed a “system” to pick stocks.

My favorite sportswriter, Joe Posnanski, has developed a baseball prediction system of his own.  He describes it in perfect detail when he says:

In my prediction system, I basically use a statistical and scouting bouillabaisse to rank the players on each team. And then I … well, look, I can’t remember the whole thing right now. All I can tell you is that I rank players, add some stuff together, subtract some stuff, multiply by pi (or divide by pi) … and … voila … a baseball prediction system!

It’s the perfect Hot Stove system … perfect, because it’s pointless and ridiculously flawed and I’m fairly certain (and fairly hopeful) that people will have forgotten all about it long before the baseball season actually begins.

So, using the Posnanski system, how did the Cubs do?  Pos has the Cubs winning 86 games and finishing second in the NL Central behind the Cards.  I think that makes sense.  But here’s the interesting thing.  As Pos says in his quasi-explanation of his prediction system, he ranks players on each team.  Where he goes from there is anyone’s guess.  But in his article, he lists the best players at each position in each division.  And much to my surprise, Ryan Theriot was listed as the best shortstop in the NL Central.  Can that be right?

As you probably know, although I like Theriot’s style of play (he’s hard-nosed and gritty), I don’t think he is a particularly good shortstop.  In the very least, he’s not the quality of shortstop that a team with a $140 million payroll should have in their everyday lineup. 

As much as I like and respect Joe Posnanski, I had to take a closer look at his assertion that Ryan Theriot is the best shortstop in the NL Central.

In addition to Theriot, the other starting shortstops in the NL Central are:

• Tommy Manzella (Astros)
• Alcides Escobar (Brewers)
• Brendan Ryan (Cardinals)
• Ronny Cedeno (Pirates)
• Orlando Cabrera (Reds)

The NL Central has a rather weak crop of shortstops.  Manzella and Escobar are rookies, so it’s hard to say exactly how well they’ll do.  However, the Brewers traded a respectable J.J. Hardy so Escobar could take over at short.  That should tell you what Milwaukee is expecting out of Escobar.  Is he better than Theriot?  It’s hard to say, but I can just about guarantee you that Milwaukee would not trade Escobar for Theriot, even if the Cubs made up the salary difference. 

Comparing Brendan Ryan and Ryan Theriot is interesting.  Generally speaking, Ryan is considered a defensive specialist who is a sub-par hitter.  Theriot is considered an average (at best) defender and an average (at best) hitter. 

I don’t particularly like defensive statistics, but we need something to compare the two shortstops.  In this case, Ryan had a UZR150 rating of 13.8, while Theriot had an 8.3.  I don’t know how accurate those stats are, but I would agree that Ryan is the significantly better defensive shortstop.

At the plate, Ryan hit .292/.340/.400 with an OPS+ of 96.  Theriot hit .284/.343/.369 with an OPS+ of 83.  In all fairness, we’re only looking at one season and the season we are looking at (2009) was Ryan’s best offensive season.  If we look at their career numbers, we see that Ryan is a career .279/.333/.373 hitter with an 86 OPS+, while Theriot is a career .288/.356/.369 hitter with an 86 OPS+.  That’s fairly even.

As offensive players, there’s not much that seperates  Ryan and Theriot.  Defensively, Ryan is pretty clearly the superior shortstop.  Advantage:  Ryan.

The Pirates have Ronny Cedeno listed at the top of their depth chart for shortstops, but it very well could be that newly acquired Bobby Crosby will end up being their everyday shortstop.  It doesn’t take much analysis to come to the conclusion that Theriot is a better shortstop than Cedeno. 

Bobby Crosby is neither an elite defensive shortstop nor an above average (or even average) hitter.  Even if the Pirates go with Crosby over Cedeno, the Cubs will still have the better shortstop.

That leaves Orlando Cabrera.  For his career, Cabrera has been an exceptional defensive shortstop.  However, last year he had a UZR150 rating of -13.1.  Was that an aberration or has he lost his edge as a defender?  It’s hard to know for sure.  Cabrera is 35 years old and may be losing a step in the field.  Although we can’t be sure, I would still prefer Cabrera’s glove to Theriot’s.  However, I have to admit that it is not clear cut.

Last year, Cabrera hit .284/.316/.389 with an OPS + of 86 (split between the Angels & Twins).  For his career, Cabrera is a .275/.322/.398 hitter with an OPS+ of 86.  Offensively, I’d give the slight nod to Theriot.

So, Cabrera gets the slight nod on defense and Theriot gets the slight nod on offense.  It’s a wash.  If I was trying to figure out which guy I’d rather have in the future, Theriot, who is six years younger than Cabrera, would be my choice.  But since I’m only concerned with 2010 (at least for this article), who would I choose?  I’m not sure who the better shortstop is overall, but because Theriot has the slight edge offensively, and because the Cubs need all of the offensive help they can get, my choice would be Theriot.

So, with all due respect, I find myself disagreeing with Posnanski about who the best shortstop is in the NL Central.  I think Brendan Ryan is pretty clearly a better shortstop, and an argument could be made that Orlando Cabrera is better as well.  In addition, I would expect Alcides Escobar to be a better shortstop than Theriot in 2010.  But in Posnanski’s defense, Escobar is a rookie and doesn’t have a big league track record on which to base an opinion.

Which brings us back to baseball prediction systems.  Like any type of prediction system, the results you get are only as good as the information you put into the system.  If you rate players too highly (or not highly enough), the results are going to be flawed.   Plus, because it’s impossible to account for all of the variables that make up a baseball season, there’s no way that a baseball prediction system can consistently predict the outcome of a baseball season before the season even begins.

Paul Sullivan from the Chicago Tribune reports that the Cubs won the arbitration hearing.  Theriot will be paid $2.6 million.

I have mixed emotions about the outcome of the hearing.  On the one hand, Theriot did not have a particularly good year last year when he earned $500,000.  So getting a jump to $2.6 million would be such a bad deal for Theriot.

On the other hand, Theriot’s closest comparable player is Stephen Drew of Arizona who recently signed for $3.4 million, and there is a very good statistical argument to be made that Theriot is the better player.

I’m not sure that we learned anything from this arbitration hearing other than that arbitration hearings are a crap shoot.  No wonder the Cubs had gone to an arb hearing in 17 years.