Seven offseason questions for baseball executives

Jerry Crasnick* wrote an interesting article over on ESPN.com today about seven major questions facing teams this offseason. He asked 28 baseball executives their thoughts. It’s a good read; I encourage you to go check it out.

* The most underrated writer on ESPN, and it’s not even all that close.

As always, Crasnick’s article gives me a great starting point for my own post. Here are my thoughts on each of the seven questions he raised:

1. Which free-agent first baseman, Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder, will provide the best value over the life of his next contract?

20 votes for Fielder, 3 votes for Pujols, and five abstentions.

Um, what?

There was on point that was lost in the shuffle with all the talk of Albert Pujols having a bad season last year: Albert Pujols didn’t have a bad season last year. He had an ugly .245/.305/.453 line through April, but that was mostly because of a ridiculous .211 BABIP. That won’t happen again. Pujols will be Pujols.

And I get all the talk – Pujols is 32 and he might actually be older, because he was born in the Dominican Republic. Sure, Pujols may be older than 32. But Prince Fielder actually is fat.

Which leads me to the real inspiration for this post: a quote from an anonymous AL scout, dismissing concerns over Fielder’s weight: Fielder has “been fat since he was born, so he knows how to play with fat.”

Not only is that a dumb, meaningless thing to say, but that is some seriously dangerous logic coming from a scout. Let’s count down the ways that this quote is insanely stupid:

1. At first I thought that quote has meaning. It was certainly presented as a coherent thought. Don’t be fooled: of course he knows how to play with fat. He is either the first or second most coveted free agent on the market, and there really is no third place. But what in the world does that have to do with a free agent contract?

2. How exactly does someone play fat? The argument against being fat is that your joints wear down faster because you are carrying weight. Maybe Prince knows some sort of magical way to think the joint pain away. If so, I hope he reads this and calls me, because every day I age, I get a little sorer climbing out of bed.

3. Let’s play with that quote a little bit. If I’m missing something logically, let me know, but these all seem to be the same:

• Mark Prior has been throwing in that motion since he was born, so he knows how to throw in that motion;
• Rocco Baldelli has been playing with mitochondrial abnormalities since he was born, so he knows how to play with mitochondrial abnormalities; and most importantly
• Cecil Fielder has been fat since he was born, so he knows how to play with fat.

Which leads me to my final point:

4. Krasnick points out that Fielder is durable: “since his rookie year, Fielder has appeared in 157, 158, 159, 162, 161 and 162 games.” Prince turns 29 this year.

Cecil Fielder was a part-time player until he turned 24. He played a full season in Japan at age 25 before the Tigers signed him. In the following four seasons, he played in 159, 162, 155, and 154 games.

In 1993, at age 29 just like Prince, he signed a 5-year, $36 million dollar contract with the Tigers. The contract made him he highest paid player in baseball in 1994 and 1995. Number of games per season from 1994 (when he turned 30) through the end of his career: 109, 136, 160, 98, and 117.

He had eaten himself out of the league by age 34 and inspired this magnificent quote on his baseball-reference page:

“If you’re ever running low on inspiration during your physical rehab, just think of Cecil Fielder and the endless hours he put in at the gym to become one of the best power-eaters of the 90s.”

So yeah, you might want to think twice about giving the already fat guy a boatload of guaranteed money. I take Pujols any day of the week.

2. Which free-agent closer, Joe Nathan or Frankie Rodriguez, has a better chance of regaining his former glory?

Um, neither. Have you seen these guys pitch lately? 13 scouts picked Nathan, 12 picked Rodriguez, with three undecided. I think we can assume the three undecided said something close to “Um, neither.” Perhaps Crasnick would have received more neithers/honest answers if he framed the question this way:

Which free-agent closer, the 37-year old who lost several miles off his fastball after Tommy John surgery or the headcase whose most notable accomplishment in the last two years was getting arrested for fighting with his own teammate, has a better chance of regaining his former glory?

Yeah, that sounds way better.

3. Which 2011 free-agent signee has the best chance of rebounding next season? Adam Dunn (.159 with 11 home runs), Carl Crawford (.255 BA, .289 OBP, 18 stolen bases) or Jayson Werth (.232, 69 runs scored, 58 RBIs)?

22 scouts went with Crawford, 5 with Werth, and one with Dunn. This seems easy – how can it be anyone but Crawford?

I don’t recall Werth ever being a very good player. Other than the Nationals front office, I don’t recall anyone else thinking Werth was a very good player. I’m just not entirely sure what Werth would rebound from, so he’s out.

Dunn built a career on two things and two things only: walks and home runs. He can’t hit home runs any more, so that leaves walks. He did walk last year – he somehow drew 75 while hitting .159 – but eventually pitchers are going to stop pitching around him. Home run hitters simply don’t have much value once they can’t hit home runs any more.* One scout compared Dunn’s potential 2012 season to Lance Berkman’s 2011 season, but I don’t see it. Berkman was a solid all-around hitter before a bad 2010 season; Dunn was not.

* See McGwire, Mark.

That leaves Carl Crawford by default. Crawford earned a spot on my fantasy baseball shit list after I wasted the ninth overall pick on him this season, but I still have to pick him for this question. I don’t know if he will rebound, but he is the only one of those three who has a chance to rebound.

4. Which vacant managerial job poses the toughest challenge: Boston, St. Louis or the Chicago Cubs?

Responses from the scouts: Boston 20, St. Louis 5, Chicago 3. I get the argument: Boston has a far more intense fanbase, while St. Louis will be less anxious after their World Series win and the Cubs are the Cubs – but I disagree. For me, it has to be the Cubs.

The Red Sox are still insanely talented. The manager doesn’t have that hard of a job. Besides, there’s a reason why managers tend to last five years or less: sometimes a team just needs a new leader. The circle of baseball life, if you will. It doesn’t even matter who the leader is.

Unlike the Cardinals and Red Sox, the Cubs suck. They had the sixth highest payroll in baseball last year and I couldn’t begin to tell you how that happened. I look at their lineup and it looks like the lineup of a team that would finish 71-91. They didn’t underachieve.

Then there’s the Theo Epstein issue. I like Theo and I hope he does well. But he came right out and told Ryne Sandberg that he wasn’t a candidate for the job. Cubs fans flat-out LOVE Sandberg. No other manager would draw anywhere close to as much fan enthusiasm.

So why didn’t Theo consider him? It has to be ego. I can’t think of any other rational explanation. Theo simply doesn’t want a manager overshadowing the work he intends to do to turn around the Cubs. And that is why the Cubs’ job will be the toughest.

5. Which lefty starter, 31-year-old C.J. Wilson or 32-year-old Mark Buehrle, is the better bet to perform over the course of his free-agent deal?

14 scouts voted for Buehrle, eight for Wilson, and six undecided.

Tough call. Buehrle’s the sure thing, while Wilson could be anywhere from great to terrible. I’d take Buerhle, but I could also see an argument either way.

With Buerhle, you know you’re getting a solid number two starter, nothing more, nothing less. And given that the Yankees lost Games 2 and 5 in the ALDS, I’d take the sure thing.

6. Which 2011 September-collapse team has a better chance of making the playoffs next year: Boston or Atlanta?

The scouts picked Boston and I’d agree. This team had no business missing the playoffs this year and they shouldn’t miss it next year. Furthermore, I don’t think Atlanta can win the NL East over the Phillies, so they’d have to rely on the Wild Card. The Red Sox, on the other hand, can win the AL East. Advantage: Boston.

7. Which young pitching phenom would you rather have: Yu Darvish, Stephen Strasburg or Matt Moore?

The respondents gave the slight edge to Moore with 13 votes to Strasburg’s 12. The other three respondents called it a coin flip between Moore and Strasburg.

Poor Yu Darvish. This is completely Dice-K’s fault. Dice-K flames out, and all of a sudden people forget how great Darvish is. Here’s a little secret: whoever gets Darvish is going to get a ridiculous bargain.

Now I’m not going to pretend that Dice-K wasn’t a really, really good Japan League pitcher. But in his best season, he finished with a 2.13 ERA and 200 strikeouts in 186.1 innings pitched. Darvish’s highest season ERA in the last five years was 1.88 ERA. Last season, he finished with 276 strikeouts and a 1.44 ERA in 232 innings. That’s insane.

I think Moore is going to be great. I hope Strasburg will be great, because he was awesome to watch before Tommy John surgery. But I’m going to be contrarian here and go with Yu Darvish. I think he’s being unfairly dismissed because of past Japanese flameouts. I have faith in the Yu!

Rugby Sevens: The Best Sport You Aren’t Watching

Some sports are destined to never be popular in the United States. Most of the time, these sports aren’t popular for a fairly obvious reason.

Soccer (unfortunately) will never be popular here. Different pundits will give any number of reasons for this but all it comes down to is our short attention span. Most Americans just don’t have the patience to sit for 46 to 50 minutes at a time without a break or a goal to appreciate the beauty of the game.

Tennis isn’t manly enough and golf is too elite for us to care about more than four times a year. Volleyball is even less manly than tennis. Cricket makes soccer look like arena football; even twenty20, the stripped down one-day version of cricket is still about fifteen15 too long for the average American.

And no, I don’t believe anything I just wrote so there’s no point in arguing with any of it.* I just write what the average American thinks. Sure, much of this has to do with promotion of the sport from the powers that be; fans are followers and they will watch whatever sport ESPN decides to promote. But the general point is that most of these sports that are popular in other parts of the world aren’t popular in the United States because they don’t fit our taste buds for a specific reason.

* I can think of at least one big tennis fan that reads this site that will take issue with my not-so-manly characterization of tennis.

As you have probably gathered from the title of the post, there is one sport that I can’t fathom hasn’t become popular in America.

Rugby sevens is awesome, addictive, exciting, and any other similar superlative you can think of.

Rugby sevens isn’t rugby. Like soccer, rugby will never be popular in the United States. Rugby is even less popular than the sports above for two reasons. First, the play of the game is like soccer – a typical game lasts eighty minutes and there are no breaks in action. Second, Americans are protective of the NFL and rugby is considered a poor alternative. Although American football and rugby really aren’t all that similar, fans persist in comparing the two sports. Football fans cannot handle no forward passes and rugby fans seem to think pads make football sissy.

Sevens doesn’t suffer from these problems. Only seven players compete on each team (down from 15 in rugby) so the game is wide open and barely resembles an American Football game. Furthermore, a match lasts only fifteen minutes. If only they showed sevens on ESPN, you could flip this on:

Like you wouldn’t stay on that for the fifteen minutes a match took, even if you had absolutely no idea what’s going on. I barely understand what is going on in that clip, but I know one thing: I’d absolutely watch that over a random NBA or NHL game. At only fifteen minutes a match, it is a super addictive game. As soon as a match ends, two more teams run out for another match.

This weekend, Las Vegas hosted a tournament in the IRB Sevens World Series. The World Series consists of eight two-day tournaments staged around the world over the course of a season between sixteen national teams (the Hong Kong event is contested by 24 teams over three days). Many teams have significant followings – England, South Africa, and New Zealand among them.

Not many in the United States cared and/or even heard about it. A few games did make it on NBC during the prime 2:30 pm hour on Sunday. Of course you wouldn’t know it to look at their website, which hasn’t been updated since January 22. The website seems more concerned with the collegiate sevens championship in June, the next time that NBC will show rugby sevens.

The lack of coverage isn’t a case of the United States being bad at a sport either. Although the Eagles (as they are nicknamed) are not one of the top few teams, they finished 11th in the points standings and 10th last year. In the Australian Sevens last season, they even qualified for their first ever final before falling to Samoa. Currently they sit 11th in the 2010-11 standings. Certainly not great, but it’s not like they are getting dominated either.

Sevens has pretty much everything an American sports fan could want. It is fast-paced, there is plenty of contact, outrageous amounts of athleticism, and fans only have to pay attention for fifteen to eighteen minutes at a time.

Last year, the International Olympic Committee announced that sevens will be a part of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Now would be a fantastic time for sports channels to start promoting sevens. There is no reason why it couldn’t be a popular sport in the United States. I have no doubt that in 2016, American fans will briefly flirt with the sport, similar to what we do with curling every four years. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and watch a sevens tournament next time it is on. You may have to wait until June, but trust me on this one: it’s a fantastic sport.