29 December 2014

The Myth About Baseball's Declining Popularity

Once again in 2014, ratings for the Super Bowl topped the number of actual human beings on Earth. Evidently some giant coconut crabs and Madagascan aye-ayes were also catching the big game on their smart phones.

Meanwhile, ratings for the World Series continue to float around the lowest depths known to human history. So woe is baseball right?

Sure, if that's your entire worldview. Measured against NFL football's voracious maw, baseball is fading to a pinprick. But then so are presidential elections, African genocide, all television sitcoms and dramas, basketball, hockey, bowling, tennis, boxing and post-Tiger golf.

Less For Everyone

The fact is, TV ratings for basically everything but reality shows has declined in the last 20 years, and they're only exempt because they didn't exist that far back. The diversity of options has dispersed audiences and lowered everyone's ratings.

In the early 70s, all of America tuned in for All In the Family. The #1 show in the nation snagged a 34 rating. Twenty shows total -- including Ironsides, The Flip Wilson Show and the Partridge Family -- pulled ratings of 22+.

By 1998-89, Seinfeld led the ratings by capturing white viewers and a 21.3 rating. It would not have placed in the top 20 in 1972.

By 2008, the top-rated show, American Idol, cleared just a 16.1 rating, capturing mainly young white adults and teens.

Wherefore Art Thou, Bowling?

It's the same issue for sporting events. You hardly have to see the numbers to know that nearly the entire audiences for hockey, boxing and bowling have found other things to do. The average NBA game of the week in 1996 earned a 5.0 rating; the highest rated NBA game last season, a Pacers-Heat tilt featuring LeBron, pulled a 2.4.

So yeah, baseball's TV viewership is down too. The nation used to come to a halt during the World Series and now it comes to a halt during the World Series if someone scores a touchdown in one of the NFL games being played that day. But by another measure, baseball is healthier than Chuck Norris.


We're Watching -- In Person
Last year, 74 million people bought tickets to Major League Baseball games. From Seattle to Miami and Cleveland to Phoenix, the turnstiles once again spun at a rate never fathomed even 15 years ago. The top 10 seasons for attendance for MLB have all occurred in the last decade. 

Sure, there are more games and more teams now than, say, in the "Golden Age" of the 1950s. And stadiums hold more people. It's all true. So is this: teams are filling a higher percentage of their ballparks than in the 50s by a wide margin, en route to doubling average attendance.

Remember that in the 50s the NFL was a wish and the NBA was a dream. Six NHL teams -- two of them in Canada and all of them playing in the winter, were no competition for baseball. Color TV, Disney parks, video games and the long list of alternatives to an afternoon at the park had yet to debut. And yet, twice as many people per team journey to see the hometown nine today as did then. 

By comparison, NFL teams drew just 17.3 million people despite more teams and larger stadiums. NFL teams play just once a week, but that's the point. They don't have to entice fans every day the way baseball does. 
 
Howard Wolowitz Isn't Worried
So let's stop bemoaning the falling TV numbers for baseball's flagship games, unless you're prepared to suffer the sad ratings fate of every other non-football property. You'll have to pity The Big Bang Theory's poor performance while you're at it. Instead, enjoy America's pastime -- on your TV, your computer, your phone or at the ballpark, as Americans have done for 150 years and will do for another 150.

Play ball!

25 December 2014

Thuffering Thuccotath: The Phumbling Phils

While the Mets, Astros and Marlins crawl from the ooze towards respectability, and the Cubs and Padres catapult themselves into contention, there is one team that clings tenaciously to a healthy awfulness in 2015. 

That would be your Phailing Phils. They are phocused on phutility well into the phuture.

Now three seasons removed from a playoff run that peaked with a world championship in 2009, the first crack has shown in GM Ruben Amaro's cognitive dissonance. After a .500 season in 2012 and two 73-win campaigns the last two years, Amaro may be reluctantly coming to grips with the disaster that he built around aging stars Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Cliff Lee, Carlos Ruiz and, most notably, Ryan Howard, whose $125 million extension kicked in the moment his career went belly up.*

*Howard ended the 2011 season by tearing his Achilles tendon on the last out of the playoffs. The extension commenced in 2012 with Howard in rehab. In the three years since, Howard has delivered a win below replacement, slugging 11 fewer home runs than he hit in 2006 alone.

This winter, Amaro finally sold off a part -- shortstop Jimmy Rollins -- but has stuck with the rest of an aging bunch and a steadfast defense of his plan. Without the influx of prospects from trades of veterans, the Phils are headed for a long stint in the fire as they exit the frying pan. This is particularly true absent a productive farm system the last few years that has spit out Domonic Brown, Cody Asche, Freddy Galvis and Darren Ruf. Combined, this crew has performed at half a run below replacement for their careers.

In fact, first round picks in Philadelphia's last 11 drafts have totaled a win below replacement, 40 WAR worse than the average team's first rounders. 

So here's the recipe for 90+ losses out towards the horizon:
Five parts aging veterans well past their prime
Four parts lousy drafting and developing of young players
One heaping tablespoon of recalcitrant GM who refuses to bury sunk costs
And an empty $25 million/year contract that can't be moved

If Rollins turns out to be a start, and Amaro transforms every asset over 30 into some future returns, the Phillies can retrench now and hope to reclaim respectability in three-to-five years. Certainly there are robust markets for a good-hitting catcher (Ruiz) and an All-Star second baseman (Utley). Lee might have more value halfway through the season, but closer Jonathan Paplebon should draw suitors right now coming off a 39-save performance. Together, trading those four could lop half-a-decade off the rebuilding process, while keeping them might get the team to 70 wins.

The Phils don't seem inclined to go that route, believing that their current troubles are merely a flesh wound. That suggests that the first part that needs to be sold off is management.

19 December 2014

Going For Broken: The San Diego Padres

Our dads love us unconditionally, no matter how messed up we are. Baseball's dads, the Padres, appear to be applying paternal love with a vengeance this Hot Stove season. The question is, will that make the team any better?

General Manager A.J. Preller took the reins of the franchise this winter and apparently has a mandate to compete in a division that includes the Brinks truck in Los Angeles and the defending champs in the Bay.

Last year, and seemingly every year prior, the Friars trailed all of baseball in plate crossings en route to another losing campaign. Preller has attempted to remedy that with a Tasmanian Devil imitation. He's made more moves than Allied Van Lines*, swapping out fringe players and farmhands for outfielders Matt Kemp, Wil Myers and Justin Upton, and catcher Derek Norris, then signing hurlers Josh Johnson and Brandon Morrow.

*This is an awesome reference to the seminal '80s parody band, Blotto, and their signature song, I Want To Be A Lifeguard. And by "reference" I mean "theft" of the line "Summer blonds revealing tan lines, I'll make more moves than Allied Van Lines." After you click on this link, listen to this and this and be schooled.

What do all these players have in common? They all live in the Land of Lost Toys. Take Johnson, a once-upon-a-time Marlins star, who's twirled fewer than 82 innings in two of his last three seasons, posting ERAs ranging from 1.64 to 6.20. Or Norris, who busted out to a .292/.402/.477 first half of 2014 and then cratered to .245/.314/.324 second half as part of the team-wide collapse in Oakland.

Or Myers, who lit the AL on fire his first season en route to the Rookie of the Year award and then stunk up the joint during his sophomore campaign last year, bleeding 180 points of OPS before fracturing his wrist, along with much of his promise.

Of the above-named group, only Morrow, a fourth-starter type, has failed to post a sine-curve career, mostly because he's never really peaked, unless you consider his 10-save performance in '08 a crowning achievement.

Well, there is Upton, a certifiable star who's just 26. He's also a one-year rental who will be flipped to a contender if the experiment lurches out of the gate.

Padre fans could be forgiven for feeling like the glass is half full. First, the glass has been merely moist the last few years. Second, Preller has bought all of these shiny trinkets on sale. After all, the best player he's relinquished in these deals, by a wide margin, has been Yasmani Grandal, a good-looking young backstop with fledgling on-base skills and pop, but not exactly Buster Posey's profile.

While the Giants get stripped by the rest of MLB and the Dodgers throw money into the wind, Preller might just be on to something. Or he might be reprising the crash-and-burn Miami Marlins of 2012. If you're a San Diegan, have faith. After all, father knows best.

16 December 2014

If the Astros Aren't 2015's Astros, Who Are?

After the departure of Biggio and Bagwell, and repeated attempts to climb halfway up the mountain by swapping prospects for temporary fixes, the Houston Astros finally collapsed into a vortex of eternal mediocrity. When a new owner arrived in Houston in 2011, he cleaned out the front office and found a GM who was capable of flipping veteran assets for future value.

What followed has been three years of abject baseball poverty followed by a 2014 in which the rising stars picked off the opposition 70 times. Having this off-season inked Grade A relievers Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek to free agent deals that address what ails the Astros most, the team is now poised to exit the vortex completely and make a run at respectability, with contention not far down the road.

So if the Astros are no longer the Astros, and the Pirates sport a winning-season streak, and the Cubs are emerging from hibernation, and their South Side counterparts are signing everyone who will, who is this year's Astros?

Which team is gutting the lineup in a reverse-engineered effort to rise later by crashing today?

It can't be the Padres; you need veteran talent before you can trade them for prospects. The Rockies don't fit the bill; they've slept through all the trade talk. And as semantically satisfying as it would be for Arizona to claim the mantle of turning to ashes for a phoenix-like rise later, the Dbacks are not so inclined.

This year's Astros won 90 games two years ago and maintain the core of that squad, yet they're lowering the lifeboats this off-season. It's the Cincinnati Reds, who cashed in two of their starters -- Alfredo Simon and Mat Latos -- in deals that brought prospects but cost five wins against replacement. Both pitchers will begin getting expensive this year and reach free agency in 2016.

When a 76-win team sheds five wins it either has no plan or it's aiming to bunny-hop to contention in future years.  If another shoe drops; like a trade of Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto or Johnny Cueto; that will be a sure sign. If shoes stay on feet, then the current moves will be head-scratchers. Simon and Latos are too much to sacrifice if this team wants to compete in 2015 and they didn't bring enough back to punt the year and expect an immediate return to contention.

The Reds aren't a bad team -- probably somewhere between their last two records, not good enough to compete for a title but not bad enough to tear it down. So with the Cubs ascendant and St. Louis & Pittsburgh still at fighting weight, Cincinnati management may have concluded that the timing, not to mention finances, justifies an all-out strategy rather than all-in. What's curious about it is how far the Reds need to fall to really retrench. Catcher Devin Mesoraco, Votto, Phillips and third baseman Todd Frazier comprise four-fifths of an All-Star infield. Cueto, Mike Leake, Homer Bailey and Tony Cingrani still anchor a middling rotation and the Cuban Missile, Aroldis Chapman, is a human highlight reel out of the pen. 

Then there's Billy Hamilton. He's a threat to score every time he gets to first. He starts doing that more often and YouTube could blow up.

In other words, the Reds would have been an odd choice for 2015's Astros before the winter trading commenced. But if they're not the 2015 Astros now they could join the 2011 Astros in the vortex of eternal mediocrity.

13 December 2014

Spinning the Trade Carousel

For baseball fans, it's like Thanksgiving night. There was so much to consume that we don't know quite what to make of it. We're stuffed, overwhelmed and a little queasy.

Even a few days after the conclusion of the Winter Meetings and the spasm of trades there, we're still not sure what the Dodgers and A's are doing. Both have venerable GMs who have earned the benefit of the doubt. But why salary-dump Matt Kemp (on the Padres, of all teams) as the Dodgers did, and then ink Brandon McCarthy for four years when all he's proven is that he's an average starter who can't stay upright? Why cash in your three best players for prospects, as they A's did, and then sign DH Billy Butler for three years/$30 million?

We can see what the Red Sox are up to. They are rebuilding a pitching staff that they had disassembled during last year's cleansing.

We can understand the Reds' plan. They're cashing out this hand and waiting until they can assemble better cards. One less team for the Cubs to worry about as they return to contention.

The White Sox' strategy is evident. They're taking a puncher's chance by signing David Robertson and trading for Jeff Samardzjia, though it's unlikely that will amount to much.

Miami is dong likewise, taking flyers on elder hurlers Dan Haren and Mat Latos, and speedster Dee Gordon, while welcoming back from injury pitching phenom Jose Fernandez, reliever Kevin Gregg and infielder Rafael Furcal. This could be a team to reckon with.

The signing of Jon Lester is the first domino to fall in the Cubs' ascent, to mix and mangle metaphors, and the swap of farmhands for catcher Miguel Montero is the second. Watch out 2016. 

We can even fathom how the Giants, fat from a World Championship, are being picked clean by free agency, stripped of Pablo Sandoval, Jake Peavy and probably Michael Morse this off-season.

But Oakland and L.A., two playoff teams now spinning the trade carousel to make themselves simultaneously better and worse, that we're having difficulty digesting. It's making the 2015 season interesting already.

11 December 2014

With Help Like That We'd Prefer Hinderance

I got a kick out of this line from the description of the Jon Lester signing by the Cubs:

"Lester was dealt by the Red Sox to Oakland at the trade deadline in July and helped the A's reach the playoffs for the third straight year..."

Ha! Evidently the Associated Press* believes you've already forgotten the 2014 season. You know, the season in which Oakland dominated all of Major League Baseball until pretty much the moment they traded for Lester. 

*Yes, he's picking on the AP again. Sometimes it's a slow baseball news day and all looks bleak and then the AP writes something and makes life fun again. Thank you, AP. Don't ever change. 

For the record, the A's won 65 of their first 104 games, a .625 winning percentage. Three games later they acquired Lester and proceeded to lose 35 of their next 60 games, a .417 winning percentage. They relinquished the best record in baseball, the best record in the AL, the division lead, the first wild card, their air of invincibility, most of their dignity and nearly the post-season altogether, all with Lester in tow. Having stumbled into the Wild Card game, they gakked up a big eighth-inning lead, with Lester on the hill, against middling Kansas City. 

In sum, their season descending into ignominy almost immediately upon Lester's arrival. That's how he "helped" them earn a playoff berth.

Now, to be fair, correlation isn't causation, definitively not here. Lester pitched well for Oakland, allowing 2.82 runs per nine and fanning 71 while walking just 16. It wasn't his fault the A's collapsed like Ukrainian peace talks.

But he doesn't deserve credit for their post-season moment either. They earned that while he was hurling for Boston.

10 December 2014

Are the Braves Punting 2015?

They'll pay Dan Uggla $13.2 milion to stay away from their infield this season. 

They'll fatten B.J. Upton's bank account by $46.5 million for three years of keeping dust from accumulating on the dugout bench. Either that or he'll occupy a lineup spot and cost them a win against replacement.

Rather than losing Jason Heyward to the free market after this season, they traded him to St. Louis with reliever Jordan Walden for promising starter Shelby Miller.

They plugged Nick Markakis into Heyward's slot for four years at $44 million at a cost of two-to-three wins against replacement a year. 

They non-tendered TJ rehabbers Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen. The pair may or may not re-sign with the team.

Either GM John Hart -- who assembled the mid-90s Indians -- is an evil genius or it's something of a rebuild in Atlanta these days. This comes a year after they inked their best young ballers -- Freddie Freeman, Craig Kimbrel, Andrelton Simmons and Julio Teheran -- to long term deals.

It appears the Braves have their eyes not on 2015 but on 2017, when their new park opens in the suburbs. Everyone not nailed down, or reeking of future value, is on the trading block. We're looking at you, Evan Gattis. You're a fine asset as a slugging catcher, but your late start means you'll enter your 30s in 2017 with your prospects in steep decline.*

Hart is looking at Justin Upton, too. The 27-year-old standout hit 32% above average last season, but he's only under contract one more year. Hart will undoubtedly be shopping both players at the Winter Meetings for pre-arb talent, minor leaguers and international signing slots.

If successful, that means the surging Mets and Marlins could overtake the Braves next season as they battle the Phillies to avoid the NL East cellar. It could get ugly in Atlanta before it gets exciting in Marietta.



* Special bonus fact: Evan Gattis has walked exactly as many times in each of his two MLB seasons as he's homered. He needs to walk 45 times in 2015.

08 December 2014

Nevermind On the Whole R-E-L-A-X Thing

Okay, so maybe relaxing wasn't the right strategy. 

It didn't all work out in the end. 

It turned out there were six teams for four spots and they all had compelling cases. The music stopped without chairs for two teams of prodigious accomplishments.

So college football is still subject to the whims and vagaries of opinion. So sue me.

Even if last year's formula were in play, we'd have the same brouhaha. Undefeated Florida State, irrespective of their in-game woes against tepid competition, would have claimed one spot. Oregon would have had a strong case against Alabama for the other. Someone would have been screaming bloody murder, football-wise.

This year it's TCU and Baylor. But here's the lesson they have, painfully, learned: If you want to compete for a championship, don't schedule out-of-conference games again Northwestern State, SMU and Buffalo. These teams aren't just marshmallows, they're marshmallows that play below Baylor's level.

TCU at least played and defeated a Big "Ten" team (I almost wrote "school," tee-hee), Minnesota. But TCU fell to Baylor, which dropped them behind the Bears.

And who can blame the committee for choosing Ohio State, whose lone loss, early in the season, reflected the team's transition from Heisman candidate quarterback to second stringer, ugly though the defeat was. A shellacking of Wisconsin in the title game, with the third stringer no less, sealed their fate.

So you've got your playoff. And your endless debate. It's the best of both worlds.

07 December 2014

Nelson Now Seattle's Cruz To Bear

There are few endeavors more narcissistic than what you are about to read, and for that this blog offers you a most humble apology. That said, you are commended to peruse this post from February, in which we surveyed the value of slugger Nelson Cruz.

To save you the distaste of consuming a product based on the producer's own review, I will summarize: Nelson Cruz should have accepted the Rangers' $14.1 million qualifying offer last year because no GM was stupid enough to offer him more. I suggested that Cruz is a one-dimensional player headed away from his peak.

In fact, Cruz's best offer was a one-year, $8 million deal with Baltimore, which cashed in on a league-leading 40 home runs that helped them win the vaunted AL East. His 140 OPS and 4.7 WAR earned him an All-Star berth, MVP votes and a fat new four-year contract from Seattle.

So that's $57 million worth of consolation for Cruz and four years of a declining asset for the Mariners. Cruz had a wonderful run with the Orioles, achieving career highs in HR, RBI, runs, walks and WAR. He also largely became a DH. And he got a year older.

Which means Seattle has shelled out top dollar for a one-position player whose skills, as he enters his age 34 season, are likely to begin declining in a home stadium (Safeco Field)  that will mask some of his primary skill -- hitting for power.

As you might imagine, this is a good signing.

Wait, what?

Let's take this one concern at a time:
1. Cruz is coming off his best season. You're paying for his peak performance.
The Mariners have the money, World Series aspirations and a roster they think is close to winning it all. The cost wasn't really an issue for them.

2. Cruz is a DH at this point.
Perfect! The Mariners might as well have batted their pitchers at DH in 2014. Seattle DHs Mendoza'd .189/.271/.302 at the plate. They hit fewer home runs as a group than Cruz hit at Camden Yards alone.

3. He won't hit 40 home runs playing half his games at Safeco.
But every home run he hits there is worth a little more. So it's a wash, except if you're worried about his counting stats. But the Mariners are worried about wins, and now they have a DH and a cleanup hitter to bat behind Robinson Cano, which they didn't have last year.

4. His skills will surely decline soon.
Yes they will. Nelson Cruz almost certainly won't be worth $28.5 million in the final two years of his contract. But he'll earn every penny of 57 large if he leads them into the playoffs and, optimally, into Seattle's first World Series appearance in the first two seasons. 

So the Cruz signing is a gamble, as is any free agent signing, but a gamble based on need and a real desire to win. And if that's your team, you have to be happy because in 2014 Nelson Cruz was doing this against you and in 2015 he'll be doing it for you.